Frank De Felitta - Audrey Rose

She took a large swallow from her glass and thought how good if, in the end, Bill was right, and Elliot Hoover turned out to be just another crazy person shattered by his loss, unable to cope, employing magic as a means of compensating for the brutal blow that life had dealt him.

But deep inside, she knew differently. And Hoover knew that she knew.

“… your fear keeps holding you at arm’s distance from what … you know … to be the truth.”

He was right.

Her fear had steadfastly veered her mind away from a direct confrontation with the logic of all she had seen and heard.

“… you know so little, and there is so much you need to know.…”

Janice rose and, swaying unsteadily, minced her way to the hall closet, where, standing on a chair, she foraged about the dark corner of the upper shelf until she finally brought forth the book she sought.

Seated once again in the rocker, Janice pulled the floor lamp closer to her side, and gazed down at the large leather-bound diary in her lap.

Scuffed, worn, abused by time and the elements, it bulged with swollen pages and paper clips, fastidiously directing the reader’s attention to the more cogent passages in the seven-year hegira of Elliot Hoover.

Flipping through the segmented pages, Janice immediately recognized the small, dainty script. The earlier portions were clearly written in black ink; the later pages, many of which were stained and discolored, in barely legible pencil. This, in itself, seemed to trace the route of Hoover’s quest for the truth, from the comforts and niceties of Western civilization to the hardships encountered on his journey through India.

There were no datelines, printed or otherwise, and each page was crammed to the margins with a spillage of words, writing as he spoke, in staccato bursts of information.

The first page contained his name and the date, which was April 17, 1968. And, just below it, two words, hand-printed in large block lettering: “I START!”

And, turning the page, so did Janice.

I left my ticket upstairs. Had to find the landlady to unlock the door and bribe the cabdriver to wait. Already the whole thing is too hard to handle.…

Air India is terrific. We have a hostess named Suman and a pilot named O’Connor. Next to me is this elderly lady who keeps touching Suman’s outfit. A sari in pink and purple. My companion’s name is Mrs. Roth, and she said she’s “in woolens.” Suman doesn’t seem to mind, so I told her I was “in woolens,” too.…

I’m feeling a little weak. We’ve been in the air almost a day and that means a lot of martinis. Also double Lassi.

Suddenly, I’m scared, like I’m the new kid in school and they’re not going to like me.…

Dumdum Airport. I think that’s the whole reason I chose Calcutta to land in. Just to look at that sign.

Took a cab to the hotel where I’ll rest before starting the railway tour in the morning. Indian State Railways. I’ll travel light. A few changes—some shirts, ties, slacks, a pair of shorts—and my credit cards can take care of anything that might come up. At all times, I’ll have my notebook, my $10.95 “Travel to India” fact book, and a book on reincarnation which, by the way, I cover with a brown paper bag.

It’s hot, and I think I just saw a dead man lying on the street.

My hotel overlooks the Maidan. It’s like Central Park.

I cross Chowringhi Road, which takes awhile to do. At the southern end of the park is the Victoria Memorial, very marble, with a statue of Queen Victoria herself. Leaning on the statue right now is a skinny Indian boy about seven, selling something in a little bag to a group of people watching a performance of the

Gita

. I’m surprised I recognized it. I remember something about … “between us, lies the difference …” you know, like, I remember about past lives, and you don’t.…

I buy a bag from the boy and find it is grain. Am I supposed to eat it? I pass student meetings, prayer meetings, and I see dancing bears and a fortune-telling monkey. I give the monkey some grain, and I eat some, too. That monkey could have all my answers.…

The first paper clip in the diary secured a thin sheaf of pages representing days, weeks, months—of what adventures Janice was excluded from knowing—which led her eyes to a page bearing the printed caption “Benares.”

I’m walking and many things are coming at me. First is the smell of jasmine, very sweet. Then the smell of smoke, and that’s not so sweet. And the crowds—the crowds of people—wedding processions, crowds of cows, buffalo, and there are some with long Biblical beards who are nude except for loincloths, and pilgrims on foot, and streams of camels, and children yelling, laughing, squalling, and bells, I hear bells all over, and then I see corpses wrapped in white silk or linen. They’re on bamboo stretchers, and they’re being marched to the Ghats, where they will be deposited and await their turn to be cremated.

I talk to a man who cannot understand me, nor can I understand his language. Later another old man approaches me, and he speaks English with a British accent but is still difficult to understand. He tells me that his ambition has been to visit Benares once in his lifetime, and that now he has realized this ambition and, if possible, he would care to remain here to die. He tells me that the waters here hold the powers of salvation. All the waters do in India, but the main sanctuary is Benares. The old man tells me that people who have never in their lives walked out of their villages will come and make a pilgrimage to Benares. And they’ll take about a week to do so and are absolved of all their sins and stand a good chance for spiritual salvation. He also tells me that if he could have his ultimate goal attained, it would be not to be reborn at all.

Right now, there is smoke twisting up in the sky, and it is from the burning corpses in the Ghats, and I’m half afraid to investigate further. I do not understand my fear, unless it has something to do with the fiery deaths of my wife and child.…

I watch the bodies being removed from the bamboo stretchers, with the families in attendance, as they prepare the bodies for cremation. The Ghats are over three miles in length, three miles of steps that lead down from a very steep bank into the sacred river. And these stone steps wed this great Hindu city to the Ganges.

Water, flowers, smoke, fire—all are forces of divine meaning to these people. In the Ganges are bathing bodies, while in the Ghats are burning bodies. Life and death, the living and the dead, moving onward together in close proximity and in perfect harmony.

Kids. Young children, watching bodies being burned. Flesh being burned. And they’re smiling and handing out flowers. They’re even giving funeral cakes called

pindas

to the dead. Imagine that! Cakes. Pastries. To the dead.…

I think of Sylvia and Audrey Rose, their ashes mingled with those of the ’62 Impala, sealed together in copper cylinders, consigned to the great forgettery in Mount Holyoke Mausoleum. I think of the quick Baptist service … words read from a book … postures, posings, the regulated silence, a tear shed, a brief exchange of grief—all over in less than an hour. No cakes. No

pindas.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation be made to your favorite charity. No ritual offerings of prayer, daily, monthly, yearly, or otherwise.

Janice flipped past a thicker group of clipped pages to the next entry Hoover thought essential for her education.

There is a fact of life here that means everything we do each day is potentially a pious act. I’m grasping, I think, either a truth about the way these people live, or I’m imagining a very wonderful way to live. I must learn more. And that’s not going to happen in forty-five days.