8

Oh, Penny—

I don’t think I have ever felt a greater need to write to you than I do now—there’s so much I want to say.

Actually, I’m not going to post this letter until I get to Singapore. It should reach you quicker from there than it would from here, and I’ll be there tomorrow evening—no, this evening, it’s long past midnight already. But I want to write now, while I’m still here, rather than tomorrow while I’m on the plane. Whatever may be said against this place—and I have said a good deal, haven’t I?—it does seem to create an atmosphere in which you can think your thoughts more objectively and indeed almost look at them while you’re thinking them. I have a strange, rather exhilarating feeling that I’ve never understood certain things about myself and my life as clearly as I do at this moment. I’m afraid life will begin to appear in its usual complex muddle as soon as I return to a more normal environment.

Another reason for writing this letter now, a very secondary one, is that I have got to do something to keep me awake! This is Olly’s great night—the night of sannyas, during which he actually becomes a swami. The ceremony must have begun by this time, and it’s scheduled to last until dawn, and for some funny reason I feel I ought not to go to bed, I want to hold my own little private vigil to keep him company! Do you think that’s idiotic of me? Whether it is or not, nobody but you will ever know about it. Even if I do manage not to drop off to sleep, I can’t possibly tell Olly what I’ve done—he might so easily misunderstand and think I was somehow making mock of this sacred occasion.

One of the swamis explained a bit about the significance of the rituals to me—he did this when I asked him what had become of Olly, whom I haven’t seen for the past three days. It seems that, before you take sannyas, you have to go through a preliminary ceremony called the shraddha, a sort of funeral service. You perform rites in advance for the peace of your parents’ souls because, as a monk, you won’t be able to do this when your parents actually do die—monks aren’t supposed to take part in any rites connected with birth, marriage or death, they’re trained to regard all three as mere aspects of illusion! After you’ve done this you perform similar rites for yourself, signifying that you are now ‘dying to the world’. This shraddha service was held in the morning of the day before yesterday, and Olly has remained incommunicado since then because—having died as himself and not yet been reborn as a swami—he’s been technically a spook!

(I can’t help laughing when I think how hideously gruesome and morbid Mother would find all this—particularly the idea that Olly has, so to speak, buried her before her time!)

I keep picturing him over there now in the Temple, not five minutes’ walk from this room and yet so far removed from me and from all of us—so far from home! Nevertheless, he is still our own Olly, ridiculously British, hopelessly out of his element, muffled in those alien robes and mumbling the words of that dead language, amongst all those dark faces. I find this act of his, the sheer courage of it, terribly moving. He’s so utterly, almost unimaginably alone in what he’s doing—far more so than any lone hero on a battlefield. Mind you, it still fills me with a certain horror and one does feel it’s a ghastly waste, even if the waste is heroic, a sort of spiritual Charge of the Light Brigade—c’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la vie!

Still, I’m not really concerned about Olly’s future. I feel sure now that nothing is going to defeat him, in the long run. People with his kind of strength work out their own destinies almost in spite of themselves, no matter what perverse disciplines and rules they insist on observing. However much Olly may try to persuade himself that he believes in humility, obedience and anonymity, he’s actually quite incapable of remaining a holy nobody. I believe he’s going to make something extraordinary out of being a swami, something peculiarly his own.

The other night I at length found an opportunity to speak to him about himself, and very frankly. I don’t know how much of an impression I made, there were moments when I thought I was getting through to him, but then I seemed to lose contact again. I suppose in any case it was much too late in the game to expect any immediate results.

But what I’m beginning to wonder is if I didn’t make an utter fool of myself, talking to him like that. There I was, pleading with him not to desert us, not to hide himself in a crowd of Hindus but come back and help us in the West, where he belonged. I even suggested he should take a job with some agency of the United Nations! But now I wonder, in making plans like that for him, wasn’t I aiming far too low?

The wild idea has suddenly struck me that Olly may fulfil his real destiny by staying in this country, by staying on in this Monastery even—at least for the present. Perhaps his destiny is to be a foreigner. They say that this part of Asia is intensely nationalistic and skin-conscious, nowadays—but a situation like that always means that there’s a throne vacant for the extraordinary outsider, the paleface prophet. Perhaps Olly, by virtue of his foreignness, plus of course his Hinduism and monastic status, will gradually evolve into one of those terrifyingly uncorrupt politico-religious leaders who appear from time to time to be adored by millions, dominate international conferences and finally checkmate the opposition by getting themselves assassinated! Perhaps that ass Rafferty, with the genius of his unspeakable vulgarity, has actually had a true glimpse of what Olly will become! If he turns out to have been right, won’t that be a laugh on the rest of us—and on Olly most of all?

Dear old awe-inspiring preposterous Olly—however far His Holiness may choose to withdraw himself from me, I don’t care, I feel so close to him tonight! And through him, I seem closer than ever to you, my darling—I mean, I feel such closeness in the thought of us three together. Each one of us will belong to the other two always, even if we never set eyes on Olly again. Do you know, while I’ve been with him here, I’ve often found myself wondering what would have happened if he had married you! We have never discussed you, only referred to you and the Children occasionally, and yet, oddly enough, I now know for certain that he’s still in love with you. And you once told me that you were still in love with him. Isn’t it strange that I can talk about this and not feel jealous? Oh, Penny, how extraordinary men and women are in their dealings with each other! Why do two people choose to live together, ‘forsaking all others’? Is it love or need? Is the need to be needed stronger than love? Or does love, in its pure absolute (as in alcohol) form, need no relationships? Do we love Olly because he doesn’t need us? I know I need you. I hope to God you need me.

What is a ‘marriage’ anyway? I’m at my most natural with you, and we live as man and wife in every accepted meaning of the phrase, and yet as soon as I think of myself as a ‘married man’ I see that this isn’t my natural role and that the word ‘marriage’ doesn’t at all describe the most essential part of our life together. It seems to me that we only play at ‘marriage’ for the benefit of other people, to reassure them that we’re like they are and not freaks. But why do we have to reassure them? Do we really care what they think of us? No, of course we don’t. (I sometimes get the odd feeling that one gives out this reassurance as a sort of public service—lest some individual should be seized by the fear that he’s the only non-freak in a world of freaks, and thus start a chain-reaction of panic leading to mass stampede and slaughter!) Even being parents is a game to us, isn’t it? And yet I’m willing to bet that the Two Ds, when they grow up, will agree that they would much rather have had us than the genuine articles!

All the same, game-playing can be dangerous, because one may get to take it seriously. There is a danger that even you and I might start believing that I really am your husband! And there have been times, I know, when you have suddenly felt insecure, in spite of all your marvellous power of understanding, and begun to wonder if perhaps the game was reality after all. You’ve accepted the world’s values and allowed yourself to think in terms of ‘husband’, ‘wife’, ‘married couple’, etc., and therefore told yourself that you were being humiliated, betrayed and so forth, because that’s what married couples are supposed to do to each other. As if I could ever ‘betray’ you! I know I have hurt you sometimes, darling, though I’ve never meant to. When I did so unintentionally, it was because I simply couldn’t believe I had the power to hurt you—I couldn’t take myself seriously in that way, I mean, as a ‘betrayer’!

Penny dearest, for the sake of our whole future together, I appeal to you—accept me as I am. Will you try to do that? Will you let me be silly sometimes, and show me you know it’s only silliness and doesn’t matter to you? Let me run off now and then, looking for my teen-age self and flexing my muscles! I can promise you one thing, I shall always return from these idiotic adventures with increased love for you and gratitude—in fact, I can only enjoy the adventures if you’ll sanction them! Oh Penny, can’t we forget about ‘marriage’ altogether and live in our own special way, the way that’s natural to us? Can’t I quite shamelessly be the child who keeps running home to you, and who is always thinking of you even in the midst of his play? When I see us in that relationship it’s obvious to me that you can be more central to my life than any mere wife could be to any mere husband. Oh, it’s all so beautifully simple, really—if only you can accept me fully, then you’ll see how happy we shall be! Everything will be out in the open, happy and innocent, without lies or suspicions. And you’ll be everything to me, without any rivals, even imaginary ones.

It’s just conceivably possible that a young American named Tom, whom I met while I was in Los Angeles, may try to get in touch with you. Please don’t let this upset you. He’s terribly disturbed, poor boy, and terribly young, and because (I don’t want to conceal anything from you, even when it’s totally unimportant) we’d had a little interlude of pleasure together, he jumped to conclusions and imagined, I don’t exactly know what, that I had somehow committed myself to him. As I say, he’s disturbed and hysterical and given, as many hysterics are, to the very anti-social vice of long-distance telephoning! So he might try to make some kind of a scene with you and perhaps pretend that I’ve promised him all sorts of things which I never did or could have. If this happens, I’m sure you’ll know how to cope with him. I shall never forget how understanding but firm you were with that poor tiresome child from Stockholm. (You see, I’ve even forgotten his name!)

As a matter of fact, this Tom did create quite a disturbance by phoning me here, and I’ve been forced to write him a very firm letter breaking the whole thing off, or rather, explaining that there really never was a ‘thing’ to break.

I am all yours, Penny. Yours and the Children’s. Never doubt this. To me you are safety and freedom, both together, and those are the two things I need more than anything else in the world. Only you can give them to me.

Oh my darling, how I long for the Two Ps and the Two Ds to be reunited! I’ll cut this business in Singapore as short as I can, and hurry home. I feel a new life is starting for us.

Yours sleepily but completely,

Paddy