Raja Rao - The Serpent and the Rope

‘I cannot understand how Catherine could even touch that bulging red flesh. When Lezo touches me to say “Bonjour” I have to go and wash myself.’

‘You must have glandular deficiency,’ I laughed.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and kept very silent.

‘The fact is,’ I started again, after a moment, feeling I should not give up the challenge so easily, ‘we’re not biologically so far from the animal. Love is a game; even peacocks have to play to their mates, and the geejaga bird has to make extraordinary involutions in the air to prove his manliness. A hero is the perfect mate for a tender-hearted woman. The sweeter the woman, the more she needs extravaganza. I know one of the most serious and lovely girls in Paris, who now always reads books on philosophy, and refuses parties and balls. She once fell in love with a racing driver, who ultimately killed himself, very nobly, in an accident. He had many lovers, and yet she was the girl he chose, she was so feminine, simple, and virtuous. When he died many women publicly shed tears, but this girl continues to live in her widow’s weeds, reading Bergson, Maritain, or Indian philosophy. That is how I met her, chez Dr Robin-Bessaignac. She was a very good student of his at the Sorbonne.’

‘That is not love,’ protested Madeleine.

‘What is it then? To be a lovely girl and at twenty-six to mourn the loss of an automobile hero husband so much — and read philosophy to understand what it is all about.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘Anyway, Georges is thirty-two years old, but he’s ill, he has only one arm, and though he may have been heroic and his lost arm was the gift of a young Russian to France, he feels very old. Catherine did not want a confessor or a father — she wanted a mate.’

‘And so?’

‘And so, when it came so damn near of its own accord, she took what she could. However fat his waist may be, Lezo looks like all Spaniards, a hero, a chevalier, with a buckler and a sword; not like a smelly old priest with one arm. That is why the Hindus are right: no man can love a woman for her personal self.’

‘Then how does one love?’

‘For the Self within her, as Yagnyavalkya said to Maitreyi.’ And I continued, ‘All women are perfect women, for they have the feminine principle in them, the yang, the prakriti…’

‘And all men…?’

‘… Are perfect when they turn inward, and know that the ultimate is man’s destiny. No man is bad that knows “Lord, we be not of this kingdom”.’

‘And when he does not?’

‘He forfeits manhood, as Lezo has, and lives with a seamstress.’

‘And what about the womanhood of a seamstress?’

‘For her, Lezo is a hero. She’s probably a Communist, and for her all enemies of France are heroes. She will call her child Vladimir Ilyich, or Passionara if she be a girl, and Lezo will dandle the child with a revolutionary song.’

‘Yes, you are right; I think she is a Communist — anyway she’s red all right. The nun said so.’

‘You see how wise I am,’ I said.

‘Yes, Rama Bhatta.’ And she laughed as before, with a simple, carefree laugh.

‘Some show physical prowess — and with some, their ancestors, generation after generation, have so sharpened the febrility of their cerebral fins that thoughts go involuting and leaping like whales in the Pacific.’

‘And some virtuous female professor admires this involved masculinity, and marries one of them.’

‘Oh—’

‘And then?’

‘The whale goes back to the sea,’ I remarked, and became silent.

‘They found a Pacific whale off the coast of Brittany just the other day,’ said Madeleine.

‘And what happened?’

‘It lay dead on the shore.’

‘I told you so. What did they do with it?’

‘They placed it at the Esplanade des Invalides, so that all the Parisiens and Parisiennes could see it.’

‘I wonder what his Antarctic ancestors would have said. I hope it teaches the Pacific whales a good lesson.’

We had dinner soon after that, and we went back to our work. There was a clear, a pure space between us. Something had happened to Madeleine; I knew it, but I could not name it. In Aix who was there to ask? When I went to Paris maybe Aunt Zoubie would tell me. Aunt Zoubie had lately been struck with a mild attack of paralysis, but I would be bound to visit her in Rouen. Meanwhile life at the Villa Les Rochers moved on in a civilized, almost limpid way.

I rarely, if ever, went to Madeleine’s room. Whenever I went I could smell incense. Often when I had something urgent to ask her — a signature for the postman, or the electricity bill to pay — Madeleine did not answer me at once; and she would take some time before coming out. Later I hardly ever knocked at her door when anyone came and I needed her help. I kept a small notebook in which I made entries, and she saw them and did what was to be done. I went to the library often, and I wrote down in the blue book the time I would return. She generally went on walks alone, and when she came back she had real peace on her face. I often heard her in the night, saying some mantra or doing japa, and I wondered where she had gathered so much ritualist wisdom. She spoke with greater and greater authority on Buddhism. Her insight into Buddhism was more psychic, I should say, than religious. She read Sri Aurobindo, too, and found a great deal to approve of in the philosophy of this great philosopher and saint. ‘This is what the world needs,’ she said once, ‘but I, I prefer mysteries and things ancient. I shall stick to my bonzes,’ she concluded, laughing.

~

One day months later — just a few days before I was to leave for Paris — I went into Madeleine’s room. She had influenza, and was coughing a great deal. She seemed almost shocked that I should have come in — so much indeed that having opened the door and gone forward, I stopped halfway to her bed, apologetically.

‘Oh, why did you have to worry?’ she said. ‘This vestment of the eighteen aggregates must have fevers and suffer. It is in the very nature of things composite that they should disintegrate. Brother,’ she said, almost begging me, ‘do not worry over this sorry mass of flesh.’

I could have wept. I stood by her. And wanted to rub camphor-oil on her chest. She gently put my hand away, as though I were not satwic enough. The room had an intimacy with her now which made me a cognate outsider. But Buddha, by whom an oil-lamp shone, seemed pleased with her adorations. Lovely hyacinths floated before him, in a clear copper plate of simple water. Her books were carefully arranged on one side, all covered with yellow and brick-red cloth. I guessed they were the Tripitakas.

‘I can read Pali easily now,’ she explained, as I looked at her treasures. There was a small mat on the floor, an Indian mat made of wattle. I wondered where she had got that from. There was even an Indian temple-bell with Nandi mount and all, a censer and a folding bookrack, such as only Brahmins have in their sanctuaries.

‘You are more of a Brahmin than I?’ I remarked. She seemed to agree, for she said nothing. ‘Let me make you a hot- water bottle, la sainte bouillote,’ I begged her.

‘No,’ she said, ‘my body should find its own psychic heat: “santampayathi svam deha mapadatalamastaka”, as your Taitreya Aranyaka says. Then why feed this foolish thing?’ She seemed so uncomfortable to see me there that I was on the point of going. She stopped me and said, ‘Beloved,’ as though she spoke to someone not there. ‘Beloved, it’s you who have brought me all this.’ I looked at the Buddha from the Musée Guimet and begged forgiveness, for so much betrayal. I could see her bed was made of boards, and her mattress was thin as my palm. She understood my thoughts. ‘You know, whatever I do, I do completely. I’m a sadhaka now; my Buddhism is very serious. Be a good Brahmin, Rama,’ she said, as if it were a prayer.