by Angus Wilson
Alexandra did not answer. She thought the Swami’s remark impertinent as well as unfortunate.
“He is now in India, I think, this great rice magician, nicht wahr?”
She was annoyed not to know this before the Swami, so she kept silent; anyway she had no right to involve poor Hamo with this charlatan.
“You make no answer,” the Swami said. “Do you fear his magic also as you fear mine? Never mind that I know your secret. You must learn that all ways of knowing are good. And now,” he said, addressing them all, “we have made our morning puja to Vishnu. Let us go our ways.”
But a young, ardent-eyed Indian youth in Western dress called out a question.
“Don’t speak Conakry,” the Swami shouted. “It’s rude to this young lady who’s related to such important gentlemen. Ask your question in English.”
“Sir, do you believe that the body of Saint Francis Xavier, for so long miraculously preserved, has now decayed to dust? Is that your opinion, Sir?”
The Swami produced what Alexandra recognized as a real mocking laugh from somewhere deep down in his belly.
“Oho! Another spy Go and ask your Jesuit fathers. Ask the Father Provincial. They are custodians of that holy body. And don’t look angry at me. Remember how it is said that when Saint Francis Xavier came to Goa the people were given up to excesses. He saved them, but not by angry looks. No, he dined daily at their tables and laughed at the absurdities of their sexual indulgences. Francis Xavier was, like Vishnu, a merry fellow. All divine science contains laughter. The ancient Lemurians had many jokes in their mathematical system—jokes that they could not convey to their more austere, wooden-headed Atlantean disciples. And I don’t mean the obscene jokes of Russellian mathematical logic. Now go.”
Before they could break up, the anæmic red-haired lady in the lemon sari said timidly in a faint Cockney voice: “How can I free my mind, Swami, from the enslavement of the body’s shame of Hellenic reason-worship?”
The swami rolled over and took her hand. “Little one, I am afraid you are not far enough advanced for me to help you. Go and see the Greco‒Buddhist sculptures of the Gandhara School. Stand naked before them, glorying in your body, in all those cavities by which the magnetic fluids enter and leave your psychic centre. This may help you as a first step of unfreezing from the Valhallan northern ice of rational logic. Buddhism may be your way. Perhaps for a first step. Go to the bikkhus. But follow Mahayana not Hinayana, even a neophyte may allow herself such a step in the renunciation of the egocentricity of monism. Go first to the Buddha images here in India. Then go to Japan. Go at once.” He patted her hand and then turned to the departing audience, “You see. To the simple and spiritually advanced I may speak directly. But to those still imprisoned in the absurd chains of reason, like our sister here, I must talk this spurious intellectual language. And now, you and you and you and you, and, yes, you my little girl, stay. I have more to say to you. You may keep the bearded fellow with you to protect you from my magic spells.” He laughed.
Alexandra was horrified. “I have a baby . . .”
“Your baby is feeding happily. Sit down.”
They were not more than twenty in all, but still a mixed bag; and while they drank tea and ate chupattis, the Swami gave them his discourse.
“Now, we are near to the moment of crisis. In one week, the procession of Saint Francis Xavier will go once more from the Bom Jesus to the Cathedral. Many hundred pilgrims will be present. The concourse of bishops and priests, of monks and nuns and friars will be large. But I tell you a thing—there will be hundreds but not thousands, the numbers will be large but not great. Why is this? Because at the fourth centenary in 1952 of the Christian calendar those worthy gentlemen the Jesuits, having gained control, decreed that the great magus’s coffin should not be carried again, his body not exposed. Until the Day of Judgement, they said, it shall not be shown to the simple. Perhaps the Day of Judgement is nearer for these worthy gentlemen than they think.
“By the way, my dear young lady, you will not repeat these matters elsewhere, for you will not understand them. And even if you are so foolish as to repeat what you hear, you or the good redbeard fellow, it will not matter, for my words have secret meaning, known only to these ladies and gentlemen here—adepts. And not to all of them. Indeed the words I speak have many meanings that I cannot know myself and must not ask. But I wish you to hear them so that you may tell Sir James Langmuir that in Goa here lies that application of spiritual powers for practical concerns which is what he so ardently seeks. You understand?”
Ned replied eagerly on Alexandra’s behalf, “Yes, yes! We’re listening. Meaning comes from shape, like, anyway.”
“You know already, my friends, how many are working against me here. Not only the Jesuits and the Roman Catholic Brahmins who fear so greatly the recognition of their Saint Francis in his true semblance as a great avatar in the line of Vishnu. And farther back . . .” His voice faded away into a vague suggestion of primæval secret order. “But also the Moslems obsessed with their absurd devotion to the principle of a single God. God, gods—what foolish concepts to dispute about. And now our Hindu friends, those who gave me food and lodging at the ashram when I first came here, are growing unfriendly towards me. I tell you all this, my friends, not to alarm you, for such threats against ancient wisdoms and ancient powers, such as we are in touch with, are an absurdity; but to inform, to prepare you. They are frightened also because of my powers of healing and extra-sensory knowledge, childish even superfluous powers that always accompany the Inner Wisdom—powers that they themselves, yes, the Christian priests and mullahs and the sadhas and the Buddhist bikkhus possessed for everyday use until they listened to the puerile limitations of reason and its lackey, empirical science. If it was only this what should we care? But these foolish persons are themselves the creatures of Higher Powers than they know, they are being used to an end. And the climax of this great battle which is being waged upon another plane will take place here at Goa as I have already predicted. Now I am sure of it.”
A bearded man in a home-made dressing-gown adapted from the Franciscan robe, asked, “Do these signs accord with those popularly given out as your predictions, Swami?”
“You heard what that fellow said. Yes, the conjunction is there. And it is being used by the powers we know of. But the powers that use us will use it also. And they will be stronger. So, while pretending to refuse credence to this calendar conjunction, I gladly encourage talk of it, for by doing so, we bring on the events we need. Only. And I ask you to mark this. They seek to turn all into a deathly so-called peace, we must bring the forces of destruction and renewal into activity to prevent this plan of our good Himalayan friends.”
“Do you think,” asked an ageing Frenchwoman with the short-cut boyish hair of her existential youth now grey and thinning, “that all the etheric forces of the Himalayan siddhas are concentrated on Goa here, all their ray forces? That would be terrible, Swami.”
“It would be terrible if we were not the agents of stronger forces, older powers. I must tell you now that my computations of the linear distances between the Lemurian high places are complete. It has been made clear to me that the old Lemurian name of Madagascar—where indeed we may find the gentle lemurs today—Gondwanaland, is not without its magical significant connection with the Gonds here in India. More and more we can see that when the Central Pacific Lemuria was in decline, the Lemurian Occident was a flourishing culture. And here, at Goa, must have been the meeting-place where the Lemurian adepts passed on some of their wisdoms to the new Atlantean adepts, both sides using their merchants and such-like as a cloak for their intuitive communications. Now I am afraid that our friends in the Himalayas are attempting to transfer the Atlantean wisdoms to Lemurian realms where they will surely turn to death . . . But always remember, please, that the true Atlantean wisdoms, as contained in the mathematical proportions of the columns of Glastonbury and Msûra and Monte Claros, above all, Avebury, are wo
rthy of the highest veneration, the most profound study in their own Atlantean realms where they spell life. I want to encourage no vulgar anti-Atlantean prejudice. But, alas, we are not dealing with Atlantis but with the perversion of Atlantean doctrine on Lemurian soil by the Himalayan siddhas who dread the awakening of the Lemurian life essences that will instantly shrivel them into the nothingness that they truly are.”
A soldierly English retired officer of the old school said in a business-like, casual tone, “How many Himalayan siddhas do you think there are, Swami? I know Moxon-White estimates eighty. But it’s always seemed to me an arbitrary figure.”
“You are right, Major. It is arbitrary and foolish. But then all such numbers must be erroneous. For the siddhas are invisible except to the adepts. Their communications can be received only by adepts. Some may receive one, some another. Not all are speaking to all. And so it is and will be with the older and stronger Lemurian energies that we are tapping. But this is only the mystery that lies behind all the mysteries of the Magical Orders. How many of us know all of those who are in our own degree? How many of us know who are the highest masters, if indeed they exist? Much of this secrecy seems foolish and trivial. Frankly, and to tell you the truth, I think it is so. But so it is. And all we can do as practical men is to perfect our powers of communication. How can we speak to the older forces of Lemurian wisdom? This is what I have tried to teach you under the simple guise of the īda and the pingalā, the solar and lunar currents. I have enabled you to free those currents and to unite them so that you may open your cakras, your psychic centres of the body. Each of you knows the postures. Those postures you will practise all day and every day before this coming crisis. As you also know I reserve to myself alone the knowledge of the magus’s position which will release the magnetic fluids. But I must warn you that there are many things I do not know. There lie the dangers. But all this will be fought, of course, on the simple plane of legend, of Hindu and Christian and Moslem, of so-called religion, of the chain of avatars who have followed the merry dancing fellow Vishnu’s arrow through time—Saint Francis and Akbar and our old magician friend Abbé Faria who I believe may yet give us a sign. But it is on this surface plane that the death-peace schemes that threaten us are most apparent. Have you noticed anything special about Divali this year, about the Festival of Light?”
An elderly Indian lady said, “I think, Swami, that the spirit of Divali this year has lasted on and on for more weeks than I ever remember, a spirit of joy and festivity.”
“You are right and you are wrong. It is so that the worshippers of Vishnu have remained restless and will do so, I think, until December 3rd, the day of the Saint Francis procession. All through the Moslem month of Ramadan in fact. But where have they been worshipping? At the Shri Santadurga. Please note this. Once again in the service of this deadening peace. Shall I tell this young lady the story of Goa’s foundation so that she may show to Sir James how we are combining all aspects of human knowledge here—history, legend, art, and occult science?”
To Alexandra’s surprise, there was an excited shout from the devotees of “Yes, yes,” like some school prize-giving acclaim.
“You must know, my dear, that when the sea-god Varuna gave this beautiful land to Vishnu, like many less divine persons, like little maidens I think, he was capricious. He tried to take back his gift. To do so he enlisted the help of Siva. Siva came as a little, little white ant and tried to gnaw through the bow-thread with which Vishnu was to loose his arrow in order to mark his territory. In the end Vishnu’s claims were accepted. But only through the good offices of the goddess Santadurga, she who brings peace. It is she whom our simple friends are worshipping today. It is a good legend. It is true and it is a story. It is a story and it is true. Like everything else. But its time has come to too great fullness. The peace that lies upon us now, the rule of the mother in her aspect of peace, the rule of Santadurga whom our friends worship in one guise and the rule of Our Lady of Fatima who in another guise draws them in increasing numbers to the Cathedral, is being used by dead forces, by the Brahmins who have always hated Siva the disturber and Kali the destroyer, by the Jesuits who withhold the magical body of Saint Francis and affect to despise the Abbé Faria’s etheric fluids. And they, of course, the Brahmins and the Jesuits and the Moslem worthies, are only the instruments of the siddhas of the Himalayas who fear the return of Lemurian wisdom. But it will return. There are signs—a dugong, that beautiful mermaid creature of the seas, has been seen for the first time on Goan shores. Surely this is the gift of Varuna the sea-god to Siva Pasupatí, lord of the animals. It is time that Siva and his consort Kali came to contest here once more, to contest with Durga, the mother of peace, to bring the destruction that is renewal, to teach that indulgence without desire which kills desire.”
He clapped his hands and from the bungalow there came leaping and swaying a troupe of nearly naked men of varying shades from white to black—some Alexandra thought she recognized as the demure grey-robed attendants, some she could have sworn she had seen as members of the community at Colva Beach. All had great yellow stripes painted across their foreheads and their naked chests and bellies; all had their hair strewn with ashes. One lean, dark figure with thick matted hair carried a trident. They set up the black marble lingam on a stone pedestal and began to wash it with milk and with turmeric, then they hung upon it garlands of marigolds. Now appeared women, unveiled, in garish saris, bare-footed, with highly painted faces and hung with ear-rings and bracelets and anklets that clattered and tinkled . . . Alexandra tried to find some bathetical image to lower the atmosphere—like a noisy washing-up session. The men and the women ranged themselves in two rows facing one another and began to chant one of those eerie, high-sounding Vedic hymns that always frightened her in their suggestion of total human isolation.
“The men and the women must not mingle yet,” said the Swami gravely, “for that would produce evil magnetism. But,” he added, with a coy giggle, “soon the tantric exercises will begin. So, my dear young lady, you must leave us. But you will tell Sir James of the powers that we practise here and the plans that we consider. And, my dear friends, all of you, please go to your postures. You, little redbeard, you will stay.”
“Oh, no, Ned. Don’t, don’t! Oliver will want to see you. Please!”
But Ned took both her hands, put them together and kissed them. Then he took her by the shoulders and turned her towards the bungalow door through which she must go away.
“I think your baby needs you and his father also if you can find him,” the Swami said, with what Alexandra thought was real malice in his laughter, “not the redbeard fellow.”
Alexandra felt sure that Ned would react angrily at the malice, but he smiled at her gently and lovingly. It suddenly came to Alexandra that perhaps this awful man could harm, perhaps he was already harming her baby. She turned and ran through the bungalow out on to the high road, from which, magically, all the vast morning crowds had vanished. She hitched a ride with a lorry into Panaji and ran to the hotel. Oliver had not caught his head in the rococo balcony ironwork, but he had, for the first time in his life, been sick and sick again. He looked pale and he shivered. Thelma swore that it was nothing that she had given him to eat.
“It’s that God-damned guru,” she said.
Whatever it was, Alexandra was taking no more chances. She hurried Oliver back to Colva Beach, where once more on the sands they could become part of the gentle, monotonous swell of the ocean, mother and child alike.
*
Erroll, coming out of the spacious dining-room on to the narrow, intricately railed balcony, paused, dazzle-eyed, for at least two minutes, as the beaded curtain swung behind him. Vertiginous, dilapidated, hardly wider than a ledge, in which the Portuguese nineteenth-century rococo arabesques could now scarcely be told from rust, the balcony was yet a haven of shade above the glaring, noisy, dusty street into which the ferries continually disgorged crowds of underfed, care-worn, yet chattering m
orning workers who swarmed into the baking town. It was not the sun’s blaze that stayed Erroll in his breezy, post-breakfast course, but rather the sudden looming towards him of a great sun-like face, a child’s drawing of a sun—flushed-cheeked, eyes hidden by huge black glasses, vast crown so totally bald that it had become recontoured by knotty veins that replaced the undulations of the long-lost hair. At one side a tiny golden ear-ring hanging from a huge elephant-ear served only to emphasize the bulk of the human being from which it hung. Out of the cavernous blubbery mouth, opened to reveal gaps intervalled by black decay, came a rich organ-toned voice and the purest of Central European accents, all throaty r’s and prolonged o’s.
“So, you do not find it possible to convey my messages, however arcane their meaning, to your great-uncle.”
“I’m afraid not. I have no understanding of and little patience with what you call the occult sciences. It would be grossly impertinent for me to act as an intermediary in such matters.”
“Nevertheless, Mr. Langmuir, although I do not find in you that renunciation of naïve so-called empirical science that these ridiculous newspapers had led me to believe,” a curiously small, feminine hand, a bare almost immodest arm pointed down at the morning newspaper on the small ornate ironwork table, “I am not credulous enough, I fear, to accept that your crisis of confidence, based, I am afraid, upon some very sentimental Western notions of the tough-souled Indian peasantry, occurred here, exactly here, in this meeting-place of the ancient wisdoms, purely fortuitously. No, no, one would require the childlike faith of the rationalist to accept so simple a view of the universe.”
Hamo lifted his eyes from his unfinished letters on which he had been pointedly intent and got up. To Erroll’s further surprise even the Lodger’s high willowiness seemed nothing beside the enormous hippopotamus bulk of the extraordinary figure confronting him.
