Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

I felt splendid, and my weight had gone up so quickly that Dr Drager laughed and called me ‘le malade imaginaire’. Of course he did not believe it, it was only to give me good cheer. He gave me the new X-ray photographs and told me to have myself examined every three months.

‘With modern medicine,’ he said, ‘phthisis is as much a superstition as sprue after the discovery of folic acid. folic acid, as you know, was discovered recently, just about the beginning of the war. Actually it was one of your own countrymen, an Indian, who discovered it,’ he said, as though it were enough for me to know I had nothing to fear: I should be cured.

The plan to travel down to Languedoc was an old promise I had made myself, which Madeleine was eager that I should follow up before I started writing my thesis. On our first visit to the Basque country two years before we had passed through the Cévennes, but she had been so unhappy that we did not stop anywhere to see anything. But this time I would see the scarred church of Béziers in which seven thousand men, women and children were put to flame, I would visit Narbonne and see the monasteries nearby. I would, of course, visit Carcassonne and see the register of the heretics, in which they were named, and the day they went up the pyre shown. It was going to be interesting indeed.

I left Pau not on a bright day, but when autumn was already showing signs of an early winter. Languedoc, however, was beautiful, with cypress and heather and hawthorn, and the Garrigues had a severe beauty that you could not get in soft Provence. I visited Sete, for Madeleine so loved the cimetière marin, and I could never forget that beautiful passage of his autobiography where Paul Valéry speaks of his native city:

Je suis né dans un port de moyenne importance, établi au fond d’un golfe, au pied d’une colline, dont la masse de roc se détache de la ligne générale du rivage… Tel est mon site originel, sur lequel je ferai cette réflexion naive qu je suis né dans un de ces lieux ou j’aur aimé de naître.

Montpellier, as ever, was beautiful with its Arc de Triomphe and the Panorama of the Perou. But I was anxious to get home: perhaps I could drive on and arrive that night and be able to keep Villa Ste-Anne open for Madeleine. How happy she would be! I passed through Nîmes towards the evening, and it was so dark at the Pont du Gard I could only hear the deep roamings of the river. I was worried about not having brought my keys, then remembered Madame Jeanne always had a pair. By nine o’clock I was at Aix. Madame Jeanne was already in bed but she had been to Villa Ste-Anne and had cleaned up everything for Madame. ‘I have left the mail on Monsieur’s table,’ she told me, giving me the keys. I was happy to be back. I was going to be happy again.

The bull was almost roaring through his nostrils as I climbed up. I gave him grass and went in for more information. Villa Ste-Anne was so familiar. As I undressed to wash, I saw my suitcases still in the corner. I shut them away in my cupboard. The past is past — and the past is history. Yes, I would be happy with Madeleine. I went over to my room to see the letters; there were five from India, and one from Paris. I made myself a hot chocolate, prepared a hot-water bottle and slipped in slowly to my bed. I was comfortable.

The letters from India intrigued me. Little Mother was full of hope. She had just heard that the university were expecting me the next summer. A formal resolution had been passed about the vacancy, which had to be kept open till my return. Obviously I had good friends in the senate. She would be happy to welcome Madeleine to India. Of course we would have to stay in a more ‘European house, with butlers and a “commode” and all that’. She thought Saroja would be a good friend to Madeleine. Saroja always seemed lonely and sad. Sukumari on the other hand had such vitality! She would soon pass her matriculation — no doubt in the first class — and join the university. Little Mother imagined me already, I am sure, a professor at the university, with Sukumari as my pupil. I would drive Little Mother back home from the college and she would come and speak to Madeleine in her childish broken English, which she would have learnt by then, for she proposed starting on her English lessons soon. Sukumari was to be her teacher. She hoped the toe-rings were of the right size; she did not know European feet, or she would have taken them to a goldsmith and had them all ready for Madeleine. ‘With affectionate blessings to my son Rama. Vishalakshi,’ she signed.

Saroja’s letter was one of despair. She said she must come to Europe and continue her studies: she could not live another year in the house. Since Father’s death it was a river of tears, and nothing else. Now even Grandfather Kittanna was dead. There were no elders left. I, I was very far away. I had only to make up my mind, and all would be well. She would be no burden on me, and she would be such a good sister-in-law to Madeleine. She knew Montpellier had one of the best medical schools in the world, and maybe I could get her a scholarship there… Saroja and Sukumari always thought there was nothing their brother could not accomplish.

There was an instinct in me — perhaps an instinct of selfpreservation, something mysterious and unnameable — which was happy at the thought of Saroja at Villa Ste-Anne; it might just add that steadiness of a sister’s sensibility, which would give me a centre to radiate from. We all seek such an exterior point for ourselves — a party, a teacher, a father, a confessor — but in India, with our joint-family system, it has become a pyramid of many different shapes of a triangle, and we equalize each other’s vagaries with our own steadiness. Especially a sister, she with the woman in her without the woman’s demands, she in whom family pride and devotion made of you a god, she could make the un-understandable known, the mysterious simple and reverential. Besides, Saroja had a perfume that would fill my days and my nights — the perfume of the body breaking into the simple principle of womanhood.

I was happy, very happy at the thought, though I knew she would never come. In any case we could not afford it. Yet I almost saw her with her white sari and her large kunkum on her forehead, her eyebrows meeting over her nose, and the bent gait of a deer. Her hand on my head would cure me; it would take the evil out of my lung.

The next letter was from Pratap. It spoke with such trust in my power to change his fiancée’s heart. He said that from the reports he had heard my brief visit had been most promising. My affirmation of Indian values had found an echo in the young lady’s heart. She who had never come down to the prayers in the sanctuary below was full of song and worship now. The Mother was surprised. The Mother had wondered if I could come again — but I had already gone to Hardwar.

‘There is a further truth I could not tell you in Allahabad. Savithri seems to have found interest in a young Muslim boy in London. It may be absurd in the year 1951 to be shocked with this, but the Mother is very orthodox, and of course there could be no question of a marriage. The Father is a weak person — he goes wherever the family pulls. Besides, he can never say no to anything Savithri wants to do. The old rogue, I have reasons to believe, is not particularly enamoured by my attainments: how could a ruling prince (of however small a state) be satisfied with a petty jagirdar, whatever his prospects? I think therefore your persuasions would be of immense help to a helpless fellow like me. I just do not know what to do.

‘I told the Mother, or rather I sent word to her through my own mother, that if Savithri could be persuaded to see more of you it might help. She is only nineteen and she does not know France. It would be wonderful of you to invite her. If this does not inconvenience you in any way how very grateful I should be. You are like a brother to me. And forgive me.