“Don’t get up,” Blacky called dismissively. “This Khyber Pass is a bit of a letdown when you see it.” He drove steadfastly through. He was still protecting me, afraid I might relapse. But I loved it. I loved the very words: Khyber Pass, the dull red earth and crouching men in their baggy kortahs. I wrote about it in my blue cloth-bound notebook. I raised myself up to look out the window. One saw me there and threw himself along the side of the van. “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” he cried, cupping his hands in the universal alms-for-the-poor plea.
“Bugger!” Blacky swerved to avoid him.
I lay back on my worn red velvet pillow. I’d brought it with me from Chartreuse’s house. Certainly nobody there would have wanted it. They’d have burned it. But it was my resting place. While I’d lain there supposedly dying, flashes of pictures I’d taken had passed before me. In a way, those pictures had refreshed me like lozenges. And now, as we drove out of Pakistan, I was beginning to have what I thought might be a really good plan. Something
had bothered me since the beginning of the trip. No one had given me a contract for my job as junior crew photographer and all the work I was doing was on spec. Ever since Frau Zwekl had left me her lot, no one bothered to worry if I was all right financially, they just assumed I was. But really, I wouldn’t see that money for a good long while. What, I’d worried, if they let me go? It rankled because everyone else had got a cut of the layout money up front. I’d been so grateful that they had me along that I’d never mentioned it. But as we made our way through the Khyber Pass a new thought occurred to me, and it occurred to me like an epiphany. In the same way that they were not bound to me, I, after all, could not be held bound to them. And perhaps this wasn’t such a bad thing—might even one day become an advantage. They didn’t own my film if they hadn’t paid for it. If I could make a book of all my pictures, I bet I could find a buyer for it. I knew some of them were good just by the thrill I felt at the moment I shot them. Yes, I felt myself glow with the realization.
Especially the women. Heck, I had a way with the women. I shot them from inside out. There was a certainty there you couldn’t manufacture with any hype or praise. No, they were good. So good that I kept the finished rolls of film in a tapestry sack, along with my camera, that I wouldn’t part with. Even while I’d been ill and was past recognizing anyone, I’d known my bag of film was in its spot. Neurotically, once I’d been well enough to think, I’d grope in the dark to make sure it was still with me. The first thing I did in the morning was look for it. Yes. The bumpy tapestry sack was still there. My future was still there. A camera could be replaced, but never the film. Whether or not the film crew kept me on, my future might be assured just with those precious moments frozen by my choosing. And whatever I looked like when I got back to Munich, I would have a skill. I unlaced my towering espadrilles and took them off. I was done with discomfort. I put on a pair of Isolde’s famous socks with the leather soles sewn on. I could wear
them out and simply move on to the next, she’d given us so many. There. And if Blacky didn’t like me as I was, I told myself, he could find someone else. I wriggled my toes. Wow. The moment of true self-possession. I would no longer go through life trying to impress. I’d walk this world allowing myself to be impressed.
I bought a ceramic yogurt pot through the van window from a poor man. I gave him so much money for it he started to choke and Blacky reprimanded me for a long time. I took a little umbrage at him telling me what to do with my own money. That’s the thing about men. The minute you sleep with them they think they have rights. As we drove along the air seemed to hum with both our indignation.
After a while, though, he climbed into the back of the van.
“Are we moving?” I asked.
“No, of course not.” He put his head on my stomach. We lay there like that.
“It feels like we’re moving,” I said and we started to laugh. I touched the lush black curls. An arrow of fine hair slid in a marking down from his neck to the tail of his spine. It sent a shiver of lust through me. “Where are we?” I asked him when I caught my breath. “It feels so noisy. What town is this?”
“Rishikesh. Just southeast of Dehra Dun.” He stood. “It’s ten at night. You’ve been sleeping for days.”
“Yes.” I stretched, gloriously rested and replenished. Just being well was enough.
“We’re in India, finally.” He returned to the wheel. Off we went.
India. I remembered the first time I’d heard him say the word so seductively, long ago in Isolde’s flat. I pulled myself up, spread the curtains, and looked out the window, feasting upon the scene.
Droves of Indians milled around the van. Rishikesh! Through the dark streets hummed a seedy, noisy little town. It was a holy city, traditionally a stopover for Hindu pilgrims. The streets clattered with horse carts shuttling ladies in saris from ashram to
hotel. Curious truck drivers stood gaping in doorways cut through with harsh white light from dangerously low-hanging, flickering lightbulbs, and barefoot, orange-robed sadhus paraded about with waist-length hair and glazed-over eyes. There was a tremendous jingle-jangle going on, prayer bead hawkers and street vendors clanging in a hubbub. It was all so hectic after my silent stretch of healing, I instantly longed to get away. “My God!” I groaned. “So many people! Like ants. Where do they all come from?”
Blacky said, returning to the wheel and starting up the engine, “I’m having a tough time not hitting any of them. They act oblivious. It’s like they don’t care if they get hit or not!”
The van inched its way through the crowds. The town cringed and jangled with activity. Lepers bounded up and shoved each other in the way of the van. “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” they shouted.
“What do they want?” I cried and climbed into the passenger seat.
Blacky gently took my hand as he continued to drive. “Every city in India has its lepers, Claire. The holy cities attract more simply because business is better there. Indians on retreat are noticeably more generous than those at home. Because we are situated here within one of the most backward regions of India, where leprosy is believed to be the punishment of a crime committed in a previous life, the city carries the burden of these blighted inhabitants blindly.”
“But why? Why does no one help?”
“Because to approach or associate with them socially would mean to interfere with the leper’s karma, thereby contaminating one’s self not only physically but spiritually.”
“Oh, God, they’re horrible!”
Blacky’s jaw set. “Not as horrible as those Westerners who ignore them. You’ll see. It rubs off. You’ll find you can simply avert your eyes and walk on by.”
“I could never ignore them,” I protested.
Sitar music yelped tinnily from cheap radios skeletal women had traded for now-forever-gone fertility. (Have your tubes tied, here’s your radio. Next!) Their noses were pierced with silver hoops, and the stuffy odor of sandalwood and curry incense lingered over the stink of worse and rotten smells. Teams of beggars outside air-conditioned restaurants spat horrid gobs of “oyster” where the swarthy Sikhs in turbans hustled by in rubber-banded beards and arrogant disdain.
“Don’t worry, Claire.” Blacky twirled the wheel happily. “Chartreuse told me about a magical guru who runs a quiet and reasonably priced inn. It’s called the Alpine Cottage.”
“Really?” I drew back, horrified, from the window. “I can’t imagine anything peaceful around here. This is worse than Penn Station at rush hour! And the dust!”
“Chartreuse said he’s the real deal,” Blacky forecast enthusiastically.
I knew he’d been looking forward to this. I just wished we would get there soon. The arid ground, the throngs of people—it was like being caught in a wind tunnel. The Ganges, fortunately, moistened the dust with whale-sized puddles and rivulets. We followed it out of town to find that peaceful inn.
We got lost several times and by the time we drove into the hovel of trees behind the pale sign announcing ALPINE COTTAGE—ALL WELCOME, it was the wee hours. A dog barked. I saw a rainbow parrot stomping out on a tin roof to see what was up. A white-haired swami, maybe sixty, his face coffee white, his body hard as a nut and like a boy’s, came out to greet us. He seemed pleased to see us and folded his hands into a steeple. The kitchen was just a table and a bubbling cauldron in the yard, but the library was lined with books and in the welcoming room doilies graced the ragged cashmere easy chairs.
Blacky had been expecting an impressive ashram, I think, and I could tell he was disappointed by the paltriness of the place, but
I reminded him that by the standards we were by now used to, the place seemed almost elegant.
There were no other guests in residence and the swami had only one apostle. His name was Narayan and he was no more than a slip of a boy. He was incredibly beautiful. He didn’t seem very holy. What most impressed him was my dazzling collection of beads, which he walked right up to and took hold of. Narayan had a way of standing too close to you. He had no sense of discretion. The swami collected our passports himself and sent his apostle off to make us some chi.
I didn’t want to stay in the cloister-like room allotted us. It was light green and had the fluorescence of a Chinese restaurant. I thought Blacky wouldn’t want sex in a room like that with two cots and the thin walls. “Why don’t we stay in the van?” I persuaded, leaning against him. He gave in and we climbed back into our cozy womb of bliss protected from invaders by the Alpine Cottage’s strong walls and gates.
That night he climbed in the van and on top of me. I protested, “But I’m so not ready!”
“I’ll take care,” he breathed, aroused, in my ear.
“Okay, then. Sure.” I gave in, easy.
He pulled my hips up onto him and straddled me, entering me with his dark penis, eliciting from me those moans of acquiescence you can’t help making, you can’t help the rapture. It just goes on and on until you know you’ve found it, there. Yes, there, your teeth little cushions around his shoulder’s flesh, your inner parasol opening, opening, pouring with rapture’s own rain.
When I woke up in the morning, Blacky and Swamiji were already drinking chi out in the garden. They’d hit it off very well. They were discussing philosophy, a subject they both seemed well up on. There were German newspapers and a copy of Der Spiegel on the small table before them so I knew Blacky had
already been up and out to the embassy. My heart sank. One copy of Der Spiegel and I’d lose him for days. But life is not about controlling someone else, it’s about bringing the best out of him. I put on my biggest smile and went over.
Blacky gave a wave when he saw me. I sat down and joined them on a rickety stool. Someone had gone for sweet buns. I could have eaten them all. I hadn’t had an appetite in so long, now I was prepared to eat the plate.
The Alpine Cottage might not have been an established, touristy holy place, but it was authentic, I thought, very peaceful and well kept, however poor. Narayan seemed to spend most of his time sweeping the place out.
When I was in the middle of my second bun I realized they were looking at me in a funny way. “What’s wrong?” I said.
Blacky held out an old copy of the German paper. It was crumpled, having been read many times. It was dated two weeks ago.
“What is it?”
“It says here,” Blacky read excitedly, “members of the Democratic and Republican leadership of the House of Representatives began talking publicly and seriously about impeaching President Nixon.”
“Wow. Let me see that.”
“Oh! Almost forgot!” Blacky patted his shirt pocket. “Claire! Here.” He passed me two letters, one an official-looking beige envelope on hefty ivory stock from Zurich and the other a flimsy blue airmail letter from America.
I opened the official-looking one first. It was from Herr Binnemann.
“What’s it say?” He hovered at my elbow.
I blinked. I took my time, rereading the letter twice. “It seems,” my voice was thick as the words came out, “that Frau Zwekl had some debts. I won’t be seeing as much money as I’d thought from her estate.”
“Oh.” He raked his hair back with his fingers. “How much will you be getting?”
I handed him the letter.
“Hmm,” he said finally. Then, “Well, cheer up. It will pay for this trip, won’t it?”
I felt sick. “Just.” I sat down on a pile of straw mats. This was a blow. From heiress to adventuress.
He was disappointed for me, I could tell. But I couldn’t help feeling I’d toppled in his estimation. He assessed my misery. “Look,” he said, “you’ll make tons of money modeling when we get back to Munich. You know you will!” He flicked the bottom of my chin.
I’d thought we both knew I was going to try my luck as a photographer when I got back to Munich. “But, Blacky—”
“Hey. Come on! You have another letter. Maybe it’s good news! One bad, one good. That’s how it goes.”
Doubtfully, I opened it quickly. This was from Carmela, my sister, the older one, the beauty. You know. Looks like Snow White but mean as the stepmother. I felt myself trembling already. “Dear Claire,” it began, “What the hell do you think you’re doing traveling around the goddamn world when I’m stuck here like this, divorced, with mommy and daddy? What are you thinking? And Zinnie says when she graduates she’s going into the police academy! That’s your fault, too!”
I folded up the letter and stuck it in my bag without finishing it. I pushed it out of sight, out of mind. But I could just see my little sister, Zinnie, short and blond and fierce, making claims to go clean up the world. “A clear conscience has the strength of ten men,” Michael used to tell us. She’d fallen for it, all right.
Blacky, acting as though all of this were nothing more than one more thing to deal with, went off to the swami’s welcome room to see what he could dig up in the way of more knowledge to go. I proceeded to chew off my fingernails, something to go with the
buns. After a while I washed myself at the pump and then cleaned my assortment of lenses. Blacky had come across volumes of books on the shelves about the Dalai Lama and announced that he planned to look through them. This would take hours. I was beginning to realize he was a bookaholic, it didn’t much matter in which language. Maybe he really didn’t care if I had money. I was very unsure. Not knowing what to do with myself, I swung back and forth on the macramé hammock there behind the courtyard. When Narayan saw me sitting in the garden, he decided to show me the town.
He was a wonderful guide and I wound up spending almost the entire day with him. He took me all sorts of places, the most memorable of them the Monkey Temple. It was exotic and marvelous and thoroughly overrun with darling, precocious monkeys. I asked him to remove his shirt while the monkeys climbed all over him. He had a way of looking at the camera with this pleading happiness. There was so much life and excitement to him. He practically exploded with it. He reminded me of me when I first came to Europe, which led me to think of my bad news. Never mind, I told myself. I could make money with my pictures. I would make money with them! Then I let Narayan shoot my picture while the monkeys traveled over my head, jumped lightheartedly into my arms, scrupulously checked for fleas on my scalp. I started to feel a little overwhelmed. They were becoming a swarm. They must have heard the fear in my voice as I called frantically to Narayan but, enthused as he was with his new job, he just kept taking pictures. At last I got through to him and he plundered through the rush of smelly creatures, who’d by now enveloped my entire body.
There was one saucy one who wouldn’t be put down. It turned vicious and latched on to the flesh behind my knee with its demonic teeth. I cried out and Narayan threw me to the ground, clearing it and the others off in a scatter. He yanked me away before they
could climb back up and we ran, terrified, Narayan’s shirt gone for good. One monkey slithered through the branches overhead with it draped around its shoulders like a lucky shawl.
When we got back to the inn we were laughing but it hadn’t been funny at the time. I shuddered as we told our tale to Blacky and Swamiji, who listened with his bright eyes. There was a wonderful ambience at the Alpine Cottage, like there was something genuine going on. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something holy there. You wanted to be good. It was that little swami. Even if you weren’t talking with him—and Blacky was doing a good job of monopolizing him—he made you want to please him.
Narayan was quite taken with my makeup bag. I’d never thought of it as valuable, but suddenly, here, it became his focus. His eyes would follow it when I would carry it past him on the way to the outhouse. Suddenly he would come up to me and caress it from beneath, his raisin eyes glittering, his perfect white teeth gleaming. The next afternoon I sat in the window in a shaft of light and there he was suddenly, ogling my stupid, old-as-the-hills JCPenney bag. “Tch,” I said, losing patience, aggravated at being caught clandestinely tweezing my chin hairs. “Take the darn thing.”
He stood up, offended. He looked as though I’d slapped him. “Oh, no,” he wiggled his head in that funny, wobbly way they have, “not like that.” He went away.
And I’d thought he was shallow. I felt really ashamed. I looked around. Really. These people had nothing. I went out and sat on a canvas chair in the garden. My fault, too, the letter had said. Well, that was just it. At home I was always just “Me, too! Me, too!” And I hated it.
Narayan reappeared. He climbed up and stood on the garden wall. He put one slender brown foot in front of the other, balancing himself like a tightrope walker. Behind him palm tree fronds moved, thick and green and yellow.
“Where is Dr. Blacky?” I asked him, hoping to start fresh.
“Dr. Blacky is in the meditation room,” he said, “trying to meditate.”
For some reason this aggravated me. “How’s he doing?” I inquired.
“Trying too hard.” He shrugged.
I laughed, pleased. I didn’t really mind if Blacky beat me in the holier-than-thou game, but I’d heard that part of the requirement for enlightenment was relinquishing sex. That I absolutely could not have. We were just getting started.
But then Blacky and Swamiji, deep in conversation, strolled into the garden and sat beside us.
Imagining I’d gain points with Swamiji, I presented Narayan with the makeup bag. I’d thought the things inside were what had appealed to him but he just tumbled the entrails onto the ground and attached the bag to his holy beads.
“What a rubble!” Swamiji remarked about the pile of stuff.
“That’s the one thing about Claire,” Blacky sold me out without a thought, “she’s a clutter bug.”
I was a little stung by that remark because although it was true, I tried my best to be tidy in front of him.
Narayan said, “Goodness, Claire, your leg is festering!”
I twisted my body to see. “Yeah. I thought it wasn’t much, but it seems—”
“Let me see that!” Blacky took hold of my leg. He changed his glasses and looked more closely. “Looks mean,” he murmured, pressing the swollen flesh.
“Pity,” Narayan said, combing his coconut-oiled hair with my clean brush.
“Those monkeys have rabies.” Swamiji wrinkled his brow.
“Oh, no. It couldn’t be.” I shook my head. “Those animals were healthy. They—”
“Oh, we have four or five deaths a year from rabies,” Swamiji interrupted, pursing his lips. “Not pleasant.”
Blacky and I looked at each other.
“Is there a health clinic nearby?” Blacky asked.
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” I said.
“You’re going to have to have rabies shots,” he said sternly.
“Oh, no, I’m not,” I said, remembering hearing tales of agony from childhood. Something about needles directly into the stomach and excruciating pain.
“I’m afraid we can’t take that chance,” Blacky said.
“No,” I shook my head vehemently, “not after all I’ve just been through.”
“Especially because of it.”
“I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t not.”
Swamiji went into the house. We sat on the swept ground and waited. No one said a thing. I remember there was a snake, a little one, taking the sun. It was very still. We were all very still.
Swamiji returned a short time later with an address. “Here we go. It’s across the border in Nepal. But it’s not far at all. Their clinic is quite good. Better than ours. It’s just—” He stopped. “Well. If you can bring your own needles …” He moved his Adam’s apple up and down carefully. “Their needles are awfully thick. Quite painful, I’m told.”
“Oh, I have my own needles,” Blacky assured him and looked at me with those sea green, don’t-worry-about-a-thing eyes.
I began to tremble.
Swamiji walked over to me and put a hand on the top of my head. Immediately I stopped trembling. It wasn’t anything eerie, it felt more loving: like a favorite uncle’s touch. “Claire,” he spoke softly, “no one will make you do anything you don’t want. All right?”
“All right.” I nodded, immediately feeling better.
“That’s right,” Blacky reassured me, “we won’t even leave until you’re ready.”
Swamiji padded over to the banyan tree, unwound his cloth, and folded himself into the lotus position. We all watched him. It was as though he’d left us, gone far away. We sat there for a long time watching him.
Blacky and Narayan discussed astrology, which Blacky knew nothing about. He had only scorn for astrology when I talked about it. I thought of what it would be like when we rejoined the others. Every time before this Blacky had reverted to being Tupelo’s fiancé. But he was my sweetheart now. He couldn’t deny it. I took his picture sitting there. And I wasn’t going to let the past ruin everything. I thought of the film and how it would be when we hooked up with them all again. “I miss our friends,” I said, a tear slipping out.
“But, darling, we can leave today.” He took my hands in his. He’d never called me darling before. He pushed his glasses up with his pointer finger in that endearing way he had. “A week or so more and we’ll be with the others.”
My heart leapt with joy. Then I realized that his did, too.
He said, “It’s all been too much for you. Once it’s over and we get you your rabies shots we can head for the village of the Dalai Lama. Just think of it, Claire! We’re that close. In all our lives we will never meet another living god. It’s so exciting. Come. We’ll get your rabies shots taken care of in Nepal. I’ll be with you the whole time. Every minute. All right? And then we’ll drive up to Dharamsala and rejoin the gang. I’ve cabled ahead.” He wrinkled his forehead. “I mean, I can’t be sure they got it but they most probably did. I know Wolfgang will be thrilled to see you looking so well.” He narrowed his eyes in a pretense of jealousy. “I’m not sure I like the thought of that.”
“As if you had to give him a second thought,” I sneered, heartened by any insecurity on his part, even if it was feigned to make me feel better.
“I wouldn’t mind one of Isolde’s omelets right now,” he confided.
“Me, too. The way she whips it up with her finger! Or a song from Chartreuse’s guitar.”
“Even Reiner’s complaining I could take.” He smiled.
“I’m dying to see if Daisy’s still smitten or if he’s driving her mad with his endless quotations.”
We both laughed.
“And I miss Harry’s observations,” I said. “I think I miss him most of all. I can’t wait to see them.” I was just about to say something about Tupelo when I realized so was he and at that moment, fearing saying the wrong thing, we both stopped ourselves and—not wanting to break the spell of closeness—said nothing.
As much as I looked forward to it, I was troubled with the prospect of leaving. The truth was, I was frightened. I felt as though the closer we got to the others the sooner we would be jimmied apart. I wanted to tell Blacky this but I was afraid it would break the trust between us. “Fine,” I said at last, “that would be fine.”
Out of nowhere came the voice of Swamiji. “When there is fear, Claire, you must run like the wind through the rain. But you must run,” he shook his head in that rubbery, Indian head-shaking way, “toward the fear.” I was sure he’d been eavesdropping. Then I remembered I’d been talking to myself.
“Swamiji?” I turned to the little man cross-legged under his banyan tree. “Is that right, Swamiji?” It’s impossible, I thought. Had he read my mind?
But Swamiji had gone into heavy meditation. Or light meditation, depending how you looked at it, I guess; his eyes were, if you can believe it, turned back in his head and the whites gave him the look of the blind. The wind continued to rise and objects flew over the wall into the garden. A pair of shredded bloomers dropped in and then flew out. Then a sheet of copper flapped in
with a dark rattle. Narayan picked it up, puzzling how to make use of it. “Do you think I could become a film star in your country?” he asked me.
Startled, I looked at him, his shoulder-length hair and slender waist. “If that’s what you want,” I said. “I mean, you could always take a shot.”
“Will you give me your address in America?”
“Oh, Narayan. I don’t live near Hollywood at all. I live near New York.”
“That’s good. New York is veddy good!” he said excitedly.
My heart sank with weary premonition. There would be my mother at the front door and this Indian would stand there with his cardboard suitcase. They would call the police. “I will give you a letter from me, okay?” I said finally.
“Yippee!” Narayan cried and jumped down to the ground. He ran to the house, presumably to look for paper and pen. The palm trees above me rattled, living oars against themselves. I sat there beneath this umbrella of shade. The grassless dirt was raked in harmonious, undulating lines, Narayan’s creation. It stayed powdery and still with perfect dust, untouched by the stirring wind. The cloying smell of incense reached us even out here. It rose in snaky fumes that widened into clouds of jasmine and sandalwood.
Swamiji said, “Claire. Come and sit close to me.”
“I’m afraid to go over there. There was a snake there.”
“Ah. That would be a good thing. A sign. Come. I’ll tell you a secret.”
I walked shyly over to where he was.
“This is from the Bhagavad Gita.”
“Okay.” I strained to listen well.
“The mind has to be concentrated on God, and not on any other deity or nature.” He looked past me at Blacky then back at me, his eyes prickling with good humor. “See?”
“Yes.” I smiled back at him. But I didn’t. I didn’t understand until much later. When I would run like the wind through the rain.
We left the Alpine Cottage the next day. Although it was Blacky who’d spent most of the time with Swamiji, it was me to whom the old man presented a gift. It was a large book made of burlaplike material. It was the Bhagavad Gita, what you would call the Hindu Bible.
“But, no,” I said, “I have nothing for you.”
“Don’t let the last word be no.” He bowed in a presentational way.
“Okay,” I said, “yes,” and took the book. He started to walk away and then he stopped and turned back to me. He smiled his sweet smile. “May I give you some advice?”
“Please, yes.” I thought he was going to give shortcut directions.
He folded his hands. I had to lean toward him to catch the words. “Just remember this: Water is fluid and yielding, but water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox. What is soft is strong.”
I stood there looking at him. “Thank you. I guess I’ll never forget you. Are those words from this Bhagavad Gita?”
“No. That’s Lao-tzu.” He shrugged, enjoying himself. “Truth,” his glittery eyes shone with humor, “is international.” Those eyes continued to hold mine as Blacky marched toward us.
“Thank you, Swamiji.”
He padded silently away and disappeared into the lush garden trees. “Did you pay them?” I asked Blacky.
“Of course I paid them.” He shined his glasses with a wet handkerchief. “Well. Sort of a donation. He just wanted a donation.”
“It wasn’t what I expected.”
“No.”
“It was kind of weird. I mean in a beautiful sort of way.” I looked back toward the trees and briskly rubbed my arms. “So many different smells! It’s all so exotic and Garden of Edeny.”
“Yes,” Blacky said. Then, “There was bird shit on the outhouse seat.”
“And mice in the cupboard,” I added.
“Still …”
“Yes,” I agreed. “We both loved him, though, didn’t we?” I trotted back into the house for a final good-bye but Swamiji was nowhere to be found. I stood in the room, saying good-bye to it. A fine old Victorian clock ticked loudly.
I went out to the van.
Blacky emerged from the outhouse, swinging his arms. He sat down at the water jug and fastidiously washed his hands. Then he climbed into the van. He was always in a good mood when we were about to be off.
I said, “I’ve decided I want to change.”
He said, “There’s that lovely blue dress you bought in Afghanistan for a special occasion.”
I sat up. “That isn’t the way I want to change,” I said, wondering fleetingly, though, at the same time where had I put that nice blue dress? I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Blacky pulled out his great bundle of road maps. Another minute and he’d be unreachable.
All right, I said to myself, this is it. With much deliberate aplomb, I said, “Blacky, I have to ask you a question before we drive anywhere, before I go one step further.”
He was all ready to put the van in gear and resignedly sank back. Yet another delay! His posture sent its aggravated message.
“I know this isn’t the right moment. God, I can feel that. But this is—well—it’s plaguing me. Look. It’s just this. I know that everything in life is how you perceive it, I know that. And I just don’t quite know how to see myself with you. (I didn’t have the
nerve to ask him if he loved me. Love had to be given freely or it didn’t mean anything.) But,” I went on in the softest voice I could muster, remembering the advice of Swamiji, “you have to give me some assurance that you’re not going to throw me over the moment we reach the others.” By “others” I meant Tupelo. Well, he knew that.
Then he said, “As long as we’re clearing the slate, I have something I’d like to say, too.”
The sky in the distance had turned an ominous purple. I thought, Oh what have I started? For some reason my heart began to trip.
He turned and looked deeply into my eyes. He said, “Look, Claire, I know you think that—I mean, well, I haven’t been fair to you, really. I mean about Tupelo.”
“That’s right,” I whispered, hardly able to speak, “you haven’t.” He hadn’t been fair to Tupelo, either. But this was my moment.
He combed his fingers through his hair and made a tortured face.
Here it comes, I thought. At last. I realized he was going to tell me he loved her and he just hadn’t been able to resist my throwing myself at him.
“It was damned awkward the way it all happened, you see,” he began. “Well, awkward is certainly not the word.” He snorted at the inappropriateness of it. He sounded bitter. He was talking to me but he was somewhere else. “I’d better start at the beginning.” His hands clenched the steering wheel and as he talked he loosened them enough to travel his palms in a distracted up-and-down. “Tupelo came to me one day in April. It was a beautiful day. The trees were all full and—Well. She came to my practice. She’d got my name from Isolde.” He looked past the tall stone wall and Rishikesh down the road. He was remembering.
I knew something terrible was coming. Oh, Lord, I thought, he’s going to tell me he’d got her pregnant! But that wasn’t it at all. He went on. “She was so beautiful. I thought, I must send her to someone else so I might date her. Really, that was my first thought.”
“Gee, thanks for telling me that.”
He ignored this. “She had this mole on her shoulder blade she wanted removed.”
Yes, I acknowledged silently. I knew the scar. I’d kissed that scar and she had writhed in a gossamer way.
“Very tiny, but angry,” he went on. “She wanted it removed. You only had to look at her to know she was healthy. I sent her over to Frank Mullermai in Dermatology. I knew he’d take care of her. He’s a good man. But then her tests came back. I couldn’t believe it. She—” He stopped talking and looked at me. “She had—she has cancer.”
I shook my head. Tupelo? No. Tupelo would eat you for supper. She wouldn’t have cancer. No. What was he talking about? The sky had become thick and still. Blacky lit his Wills’s Flake cigarette.
“What kind of cancer?”
“Melanoma.”
“What do you mean? Will she die?”
“I can’t believe she’s still alive,” he said through closed teeth.
“But she’s not sick!”
“She will be soon. I don’t like that cough she’s got. That’s why I’d like to get—”
“Yes, of course,” I said. Then, unable to stop myself, I added, “And so you asked her to marry you.”
He set his jaw. I thought he was going to say he most certainly would marry her. But he said, “I’ll stick by her until,” he looked away, “until she—”
I blurted, “But why did she come on this trip if she’s going to die?”
“And what should she do? Stay in Munich and wait for it? You don’t have any idea what it’s like. It’s not as though it were early on and something could be done. All Mullermai could say was, ‘If she’d only come in a few months earlier!’ And to think she’d put it off because of some idiotic publicity photo session she wanted to look perfect for!” he flared at me. I’d never seen him so angry. “That’s why I could never say a word,” he went on, spitting his words through clenched teeth. “She doesn’t want anyone to know! She doesn’t want horror and pity in people’s eyes. You can’t blame her. I told her I would help her through it. I promised her I wouldn’t let her suffer. I won’t.” He scrubbed his knee with his fist. “I won’t.”
“But, your mother’s ring …” I said stupidly.
“Tch. It’s not my mother’s. It’s hers. She bought it for herself when she found out. She said it was the color of my eyes and when she looked at it she’d remember I wouldn’t let her suffer. ‘It cost a fortune!’ I reprimanded her when I found out what she’d paid. Can you imagine what a fool I am? Do you know what she said? She was very calm. She said, ‘But it’s beautiful. And who else will buy me such a ring in my lifetime? So what difference does it make?’” He leaned his head back and breathed out, relieved at last to share the burden of this terrible knowledge. “What difference does it make,” he said again, rocking his head.
We sat looking at the road to Rishikesh.
I thought of the glitter of that emerald stone. How I’d envied her!
“It’s very still again,” he said finally.
“Yes,” I said, “the wind’s died.”
Just as we said it, thunder rumbled. A rickshaw took off toward the Ganges. I remember that moment as though it were etched into my consciousness. I tried to think of all the times I’d misinterpreted her words, her actions. And after Bamiyan when
I’d fallen ill and Blacky had chosen to stay with me because he’d thought I was going to die first. For a split second I relived Tupelo coming into my sickroom, where I lay presumably dying. I remembered how I’d thought she was checking to see if I was almost dead. Perhaps, I realized now, she’d been coming to see what it looked like, this dying. How she must have felt! Oh, it couldn’t be! She was too beautiful to die so young! Everyone is going to die, but knowing someone is close to death—oh, it changes everything!
He’d put us in gear and the van had begun to roll. “No!” I cried out mindlessly.
At that moment Narayan came running out to wave good-bye. He climbed the wall and stood on it, waving. Swamiji plucked his way from the dark inside and stood in his doorway. It occurred to me just then that Blacky hadn’t answered my question. I thought, Oh, what’s the difference? All the wasted time on jealousy! What good was it? Life was too precious, every solid moment of it. The best thing to do would be to forget all about it. We waved to Narayan and Swamiji and drove away.
The rain came down. It was just minutes later we drove into a flock of vultures, huge vultures. They smacked the van with such force we thought they were in the van.
We rushed out to see the damage but, oddly enough, we were pretty much intact and so were the vultures—though one of them hobbled in the rainy distance behind us, then took off and we lost him. We’d rammed into them with such force, I was sure at least one of them would be dead. The throngs of people passing by on foot and bicycle hardly reacted to what had just happened. I found it hard to believe, but all was well. We climbed back into the van and as we joggled along through the ruckus, I returned to telling myself over and over that I would never be jealous again. And not only that, but the worst of it was the tiny,
desperate seed of relief, yes, relief, that it was not me who was going to die. Not yet. Oh, thank you, God, not yet!
I got my rabies shots in a humming little suburb of Katmandu. The officials seemed to think I would need a series of only six days, not ten. We were both glad for this; the sooner we would catch up to the others—for now there was an urgency we both shared.
Ten o’clock each morning we would all line up at the health clinic—there were always at least seventeen possible rabies victims. I had to show them my American passport.
The thing was, the others—almost all children—had to have those fat needles. It was embarrassing to have such special privileges in front of them. The little boy before me—he must have been about eight—made not a whimper as they placed the fat needle into his stomach and plunged the stiff fluid in. I couldn’t very well cry out after that.
Blacky kept a forbidden bottle of apricot brandy for medicinal purposes. I made good use of it that week. And we spent a lot of time in each other’s arms. At first I thought he was consoling me. Then I thought we were consoling each other, both putting off facing Tupelo and her inevitable illness waiting for us up in the Himalayas. There was a little of that I guess. But the van those mornings was filled with love. “Shut the window, quickly,” he would say. I loved his voice, the unusual, churning timbre of it. I wanted to own him, really, his lovely feet and hairless toes. There was a pulse in his throat I wanted, too.
The Nepal sun through the orange plaid curtains would fill the bed and he would fill me with insistence. We could hear people passing by. We’d parked our van very close to the clinic. We lay on our souvenirs and embroidery, rolled over them, creasing our naked backs with their imprints, and he would climb between my
legs and I would moan with the pain and rapture of our now very constant lovemaking. The van would lurch and bobble.
Blacky had a normalcy about him, a clean and plain lust without deviance. It was a time to reap. He must have been crazy about me, my young American body with its ardent center, and yet when I look back on our lovemaking it is my lovemaking I remember most; my greedy thirst for him, with my tender body wanting more and more, and the fear and hope of what would happen next, and what would take him forever away from me. Even then I knew to be here now, aware that bliss lasted not at all forever. I held each moment like a jewel in the palm of my hand, like a pulsing dove lulling only on furlough until its own intended flight.