The Harrad Experiment

by Robert H. Rimmer

  “I’m sorry,” I said to the girl. “I wouldn’t enjoy it.”

  She just stared at me, refusing to understand. If possible, her eyes grew even larger as they overflowed with tears.

  “Do you understand English?” I asked her.

  “Please, sahib,” she whispered. “I have no one. I need money.”

  “Didn’t Sam Grove give you any money? Where did he get you, anyway?”

  She looked at me puzzled. “The other American. They call Sam. He not want me tonight. Not give rupees. Too many of us. Say all his money not give every Indian even one rupee. So why start?” She grinned at me as if this made good sense. Sam was handing me the world’s problems in a microcosm. Still, it was difficult to restrain my anger. If most men were as thick-skinned as Sam, the world probably was hopeless.

  I invited the girl in the room, wondering what I was going to do with her. She sat dumbly on the edge of the bed, waiting for me. I touched her breast through her sari. She suffered my explorations in silence. I suddenly realized my penis was erect. My body and some uncontrolled part of my mind were telling me to have dispassionate intercourse with this girl, pay for the (pleasure?) and send her on her way. Sam was betting that after ten weeks in the Iranian desert that my sexual desires would overwhelm the Harrad philosophy I had been spouting. I told the girl to take off her sari, and when she did, and stood naked in front of me, not more than five feet three inches tall but beautifully formed, I felt a terrible sadness. She was a fragile, defenseless child, offering the only thing she had of value in the world.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Asoka Devi,” she said eagerly. “I part Indian. My father American soldier.”

  “Does he know about you?”

  “Long time ago. He not know. Not care. My mother very sick. She die. Small village in Assam. No one want me. I go to government school.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Fifteen, I think. Maybe fourteen.”

  “Will you marry?”

  Asoka shrugged. “Indian man marry Indian girl. Not me. No dowry. Very bad.”

  “How many men have you been with?”

  She didn’t understand me. I don’t know why I pursued it. I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Finally, she said, “First man ... twelve. Hurt bad.” She smiled. “Many men.”

  “You have baby some day?” I found that I was matching my English to hers. It made conversation easier.

  She shrugged. “I not want.”

  When I tried to discover what she was doing to make sure that fate didn’t have other plans, she didn’t understand me. “Indian women have many babies,” she said.

  I pushed her down on the bed. She lay there passively, staring at me, wondering, probably, why I didn’t climb on her and get it over with. I turned up the airconditioner, turned off the lights, got in bed beside Asoka, pulled a sheet over us, took her in my arms, kissed her cheek, and told her to go to sleep. When she finally realized I wasn’t going to make love to her she sighed. curled up against me, and snuggled her face against my chest. In the morning I awoke first and found her curled in a little ball, sleeping like a child still in the womb, two fingers in her mouth.

  It was eight-thirty. I telephoned Sam’s room and could tell from the sound of his voice that I had awakened him. “Your Indian girl friend is here in my bed,” I said.

  “For God’s sake get rid of her,” Sam chuckled. “We’re leaving for Bangkok on a six o’clock plane. Tonight you can try some Thai shmooie. Quite a different flavor than the Indian stuff. I hope you have some strength left.”

  “Do you know this girl is only fifteen years old?”

  Sam laughed. “They start young in the Orient. I hope you aren’t getting sentimental Kandy.”

  “What if she were your daughter?”

  “She isn’t. You can’t cry for the world, Stanley. Forget it. See you at breakfast in a half hour.”

  I tried to convince Sam that since Asoka was half-American he could adopt her, or endow her, or do something for her. “What would it mean to you, Sam?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, grow up!” Sam hung up the phone.

  I called him back. “Sam, if you don’t do something for her, I’ll tell Sheila.” I slammed the phone down before he could hang up again.

  I found Asoka squatting on the toilet. I waited until she finished, and then ignoring her protests pulled her into the shower with me and soaped her from head to foot. A vague thought was slowly blossoming in my mind. I made her unknot her hair which was tied in a bun. While she gasped in indignation, I washed her hair clean of the rancid-smelling oil. When I finished, it was obvious that, among other things Asoka would need a haircut.

  I finally got her to breakfast in the hotel dining room, where we were greeted with some shock and surprise by the Indian maitre d’ and the Indian bearers who waited on us with great distaste.

  Not knowing what mad thing I’d do next, Asoka scarcely touched the food. “Not good,” she said. “Not belong here.”

  Sam finally joined us in the dining room. “All right,” he said. “I decided to humor you. I telephoned a friend and got her a job as a maid with a British family. They are sending their driver for her.” He stared at Asoka, noticing her hair hanging down her back. “A good looking doll. I see you couldn’t stand the smell of chicken fat in her hair.”

  “I’d like to put some money in the bank for her.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. What’s more, I want to meet the British family where she will live.”

  Sam stared at me, dismayed. “You don’t trust me.”

  “No.”

  “Okay. There’s no British family. The driver will bring her back to Dum Dum where she lives. It’s about twenty miles from here. Now, let’s get to reality. Life isn’t moral or immoral. It just is, and you can’t change it.” He handed Asoka twenty rupees. “There you are. My treat. You can tell Sheila anything you want. I couldn’t care less. She knows by now that her father is no paragon of virtue.”

  I decided the only way to deal with Sam was by not letting him know the low bastard I was convinced that he was. I told him that since Asoka was paid up I might just as well enjoy the rest of the day with her. I would meet him at the airport in time for the flight. After Sam had thoroughly applauded my conversion to reality, I took Asoka back to the room. It took me nearly an hour to convince her Sam really loved her and wanted her to come to the United States. By ten-thirty I located a department store, commandeered a British manager, and explained that I wanted to buy Asoka a complete Western style wardrobe. Leaving Asoka in his charge, I asked for the loan of a typewriter, and using some Grove Oil stationery I had borrowed from Sam on the plane, I wrote a to-whom-it-may-concern letter explaining that Asoka Devi was an employee of the Grove Oil Corporation and was being transferred to the United States for one year to work at the Company headquarters at Houston, Texas.

  By noontime Asoka, wobbling a little on her high heels, ecstatic over her new clothes, and still dubious over her amazing good fortune, greeted me with tears in her eyes. There was still something missing. She needed a fast haircut. I found a hairdresser, pawed through a book of hair styles, and watched while Asoka was being shorn, and transformed into a sexy looking waif with an elfin style, windblown Italian hair-do. When they finished I had no doubt she would pass for eighteen or nineteen years old. With her large brown eyes and coffee cream complexion she was strikingly beautiful.

  By two o‘clock I had her in the American Embassy and within an hour convinced an undersecretary to arrange a passport. While Asoka watched, I filled out the forms. No one questioned why Grove Oil was hiring an Indian employee who couldn’t write English. By three-thirty Asoka had been photographed and was holding her passport and airline tickets on a flight to Houston. I arranged with the airline officials to take care of her on any stop-overs or transfers. As the coup d’etat, I put in an overseas phone call to Beejee Grove. It took until four-t
hirty to connect. By this time I was really sweating. I had no doubt that Sam would leave without me if I failed to show up at the airport. The telephone connection was erratic, but Beejee finally grasped who I was. I told her Sam had asked me to call her. I told her she was to meet Asoka at the Houston airport in approximately two days; to take care of Asoka until Sam arrived; that Sam would explain it all to her when we got back.

  After paying for Asoka’s clothes and the airline fare, I had seventy-five dollars left, which I put in Asoka’s pocketbook. I hugged her and told her that she was going to have a wonderful new life. Two days from now she would be in Houston, Texas. The airline hostesses would take care of her all the way.

  “I not know your name,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Mud.” I grinned at her. “My name is mud from now on.”

  When our plane took off for Bangkok, I asked Sam when he planned to be back in Houston. “No hurry,” he said, “I need a little vacation. Tonight we shall both enjoy the ultimate pleasures of sex with some lovely Thai girls. I promise you an experience without which you have not lived. Then when we get bored, we will take off to Los Angeles. Maybe we will run down to Tijuana. A few days in that quaint little town will give you a new perspective on Harrad College. Sex is simply a commodity on the periphery of life. Now that you have learned this in Calcutta you have taken the first step. The Tenhausens are attempting to give sex a sacredness that neither the act nor the aftermath is equal to.”

  I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have the courage to tell Sam about Asoka Devi. “Sam,” I said, “I think you are wrong. The Tenhausens are not only trying to teach that there is no ultimate pleasure in the orgasm unless a particular man and woman are deeply involved with each other as individuals. They go further and envision a society where all men and women care so much for each other that the basic dishonesty or inability to communicate in most human relationships is completely eliminated. Imagine a world where I could say: ”Sam, that Anglo-Indian girl is a human being whose heart beats, who can eat food, digest it, and defecate, who has a vagina and a womb to bear children and breasts to feed them, and above all, a brain that remembers and correlates her memories. She is a blinding miracle. How could I treat her simply as a warm sheath into which I ejaculated? Imagine a world instead where every human being was trained from birth that every other human being was the most amazing, wondrous beautiful fact of existence.”

  Sam stared at me. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  “No,” I grinned. “Even Jesus failed to understand. He insisted on something beyond to explain the miracle, and then the theologians gave man something to lean on. A God who charted retribution, or answered prayers. If there is a God, why should He expect more from man than to appreciate the miracle of his own existence?”

  “You don’t believe it,” Sam said. “You are spouting words. Man is not good. He has the capacity for evil. He is selfish, hedonistic. In business for himself. Your ideas won’t work in this world. Kandy Kolasukas. You’ll grow up one of these days and discover it for yourself.”

  I looked at my watch. It was seven-thirty. We would be landing in Bangkok soon. By now Asoka was on a jet to Honolulu. I decided now was the time to tell Sam. He listened to me in complete disbelief He told me I was trying to get his ass. He told me I could never have accomplished it in eight hours. It was impossible to convince the officials and get a passport so quickly. All the time he talked, he was both cursing me and trying to laugh me into a confession that it was all a hoax.”

  “Sam,” I said chuckling, “I thought I’d better tell you now. Just in case, tonight, I got feeling the same way about some Thai girl. I haven’t any more money, but the first thing you know I’d be asking you for a loan, and you would end up with a harem in Houston.

  “I suppose you told Beejee this girl was a whore I had slept with,” he said sourly.

  “No. I simply told her Asoka was fifteen, an orphan, and you had decided to take care of her education.”

  “If it’s true,” Sam said, grimly fastening his seat belt, “I’ll put your ass in a sling. No one ever pulls a fast one on me and gets away with it.” He grinned at me nastily. “Keep in mind, Kandy, I haven’t had your Harrad education. I don’t believe in this namby-pamby crap. For Christ sake, there’s four hundred million Indians and just as many Chinese. What would it prove if I saved one miserable human being?”

  “You aren’t going to save her, Sam. You are going to save yourself. There’s a lot more important things in this world than discovering oil or flying to the moon.”

  Sam’s only response was “Bullshit!”

  When we landed in Bangkok and were in our room at the Ratanakosin Hotel, he put in a long distance phone call to Beejee. “Don’t get in an uproar,” he said when he finally was connected. “I was just confirming Stanley’s call. I know it sounds a little unusual, Beejee. Just meet the kid at the airport. I’ll explain it to you later.” He hung up and stared at me. “You miserable son of a bitch,” was all he said, but I detected a note of admiration in his voice.

  We didn’t go in search of Siamese whores, nor did Sam show any further interest in Tijuana. By the time we landed in Houston, three days later, conversation between us had deteriorated to such a point that I was able to finish volume Four and Five of Casanova’s Memoirs. Beejee met us with Asoka, who had arrived the day before.

  “Sam,” she cried, bussing him enthusiastically, “She’s a darling child. Are we going to adopt her?”

  “She’s no child,” Sam said angrily. “She’s a whore.”

  “Sam, don’t tell me you slept with her?”

  “No, damn it! I didn’t sleep with her,” Sam exploded. He looked at me warningly.

  “Where did you get her?”

  “Never mind. It’s all a joke. We’re sending her back.”

  “There’s no back,” I explained to Beejee. “Asoka has no father or mother.” I told Beejee Asoka was the daughter of an unknown American G.I., that neither Sam nor I had slept with her, and that Sam was really only perturbed because I was so tender-hearted, that Sam really wanted to give the kid a chance in life but felt that she, Beejee, would think he had gone soft.

  “Oh, Sam,” Beejee said, crying and hugging him to his great embarrassment, right in the middle of the crowds in the airline terminal. “It’s the nicest thing you have ever done.” Tears were running down Beejee’s cheeks. “I never would have believed it. We ought to adopt hundreds of kids and help them. It would make our lives worthwhile, somehow.”

  The next morning Sam took me back to the airport to catch a plane for Boston. He handed me a thousand dollars. “Are you going to tell Sheila the truth?” he demanded.

  “There’s worse things than caring for the woman you slept with,” I said, grinning at him. “If you adopted them all, you’d have quite a harem. I’m sure Sheila would be proud of you.”

  Sam chuckled. “If you want a job next summer, Kandy, please apply to Saint Peter. Grove Oil can’t afford you.”

  When I arrived back in Boston at Logan Airport, I took a taxi to a little street on the north side of Beacon Hill. Trudging up five flights of stairs in an old brick apartment house that had probably been built before the Civil War, I arrived at the top, puffing. I heard someone playing a piano. I knocked, but there was no answer. Finally, I opened the door, and there was Sheila, her back to me, engrossed in Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I tiptoed behind her, grabbed her and she fell screaming into my arms.

  “Oh my God, Stanley,” she sobbed happily. “It’s you. I’ve been so darned lonesome.” She kissed my lips, my eyes, my cheeks, enthusiastically. “I was about to kill Daddy when I heard what he did to you. Oh, Stanley. I’ve missed you ... missed you.”

  “What became of Harry?”

  “He and Beth corresponded. Then she telephoned and insisted he spend a few weeks in Columbus before school opened. Harry tried to tell her that it wasn’t a good idea. He was afraid of her father and mother’s reaction. Oh, Stanl
ey, Harry really is so very gentle and such a good person. We’ve had a lot of fun this summer.”

  “But you finally decided that you loved me most,” I said, messing up her hair and kissing her quite thoroughly.

  “How did you know?”

  By this time I had unbuttoned the boy’s shirt she was wearing and unzipped her plaid skirt. “Sheila,” I groaned as I pulled her slip over her head, and discovered a bra, panties, garter belt and stockings. I’ll never get through all the layers and find you.”

  “It’s only three in the afternoon,” she sighed lying in my arms. “This is a crazy time to make love. How many girls have you slept with this summer?”

  “A couple of dozen.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she chuckled, “You act starved.”

  “Are you going to room with me this year at Harrad?”

  “I’m going to marry you, Stanley, and have babies with you! But I may still want to be with Harry or Jack once in a while. Will you be jealous?”

  “Ho . . . a new Sheila speak!”

  “Yes,” she said. “And here’s some news for you. Peter Longini decided to quit Harrad. His father has been transferred to Switzerland and he’s going to the University of Zurich. Jack is going to room with Valerie Latrobe. Beth and I decided we might just as well simplify things and all of us live more or less communally for the next two years.”

  “That’s simple?” I asked, nibbling her ear.

  “Well, it’s simpler than being jealous.”

  “You said two years. What about our senior year?”

  Sheila snuggled hard against me. “About November of our last year I’m going to get pregnant by you, and Beth is going to get pregnant by Harry.”