Paul Theroux - The Elephanta Suite - Three Novellas

Shah made no sound, and yet—how was this?—Dwight could tell that the man approved, that he was delighted and proud of him.

“What did you just say?” Dwight asked as he got to his feet, hearing Shah speak to a man in a white robe who seemed to materialize behind the woman with the flaming platter.

“I told him, ‘Swamiji, this man has brought you a gift.’”

Dwight brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. “What are you talking about?”

Now the light from the trunk of the car was illuminating a tall gateway he had not seen before, yet had passed through. The driver was directing a young man to lift it—the Indian chain of command: a driver was not a carrier.

“The rice. A full ton of it.”

“I didn’t do that,” Dwight said.

“Collecting the money in America was the easy part. Buying it was simple. The hard business was shifting it. The paperwork, the supervision, the permits and signatures. So it is your gift.”

Dwight had resented his unpaid work in dealing with the rice shipment; he had even suspected Shah of fobbing off this chore onto him to keep him away from the visiting Harvard team. He now saw the design in the whole effort. He could take credit: it hadn’t been easy.

“Swamiji is thanking you,” Shah said.

“Who is he?”

“He too is a passage maker,” Shah said. The old man was still speaking. “He is inviting us to eat. But before we go in to take some food, he must ask you to give him your mobile phone.”

“Glad to get rid of it.” He rummaged in his pockets.

“All electronic devices,” Shah said.

Dwight handed over his cell phone, then his BlackBerry.

“He is asking if you have a computer.”

“Laptop’s in my briefcase.”

“Shall I put it in my safekeeping?” Shah said.

“Go ahead.”

“As you saw, I too am a passage maker.”

Dwight felt lighter, out of touch, relaxed. Nothing would ring or buzz; nothing would interrupt him. He followed the two men to the dining area, feeling happy.

They ate from clay bowls, by candlelight, in a cool clean room, seated on mats.

“Swami says again he is grateful for the rice,” Shah said. “He is asking if you are Christian.”

“I spent a lot of time in church when I was a boy,” Dwight said.

The old man and Shah spoke awhile in Hindi, and then Shah said, “He is complimenting you. He knows Jesus Christ. Jesus, who said, ‘If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven.’”

“That’s nice,” Dwight said, feeling that he was hearing it for the first time.

“My late father did so,” Shah said.

Now the old man was speaking—a shock to hear him speaking English.

“There was something that Jesus did not say.”

“What did Jesus leave out?”

“He did not describe world of ego—fleeting world.”

“I thought he did.”

“Not at all,” the old man said.

Shah was beaming, the flames lighting his face. Dwight waited for more.

“What is the world?” The old man gestured toward the door—toward Mumbai, Dwight guessed, where his own memories were so painful. “It is almost nothing, do you not agree?”

Dwight said, “It was something to me.”

“But do you sincerely want to leave it behind?”

“Very much.”

“That will not be hard if your heart is right.”

“What is it then?” Dwight asked, and realized, hearing the reverence in his tone, that he had become a student, an initiate. He had surrendered his will, and was happy.

“It is a falling star,” the old man said. “It is a bubble in a stream. A flame in the wind. Frost in the sun. A flash of lightning in a summer cloud.”

Dwight was too moved to speak. He blinked—tears maybe, or maybe he was overcome by the perfume in the incense that thickened the air.

“A phantom in a dream,” the old man said. “Why are you rising, sir?”

Dwight did not answer. He knelt and bowed his head and touched the old man’s feet, feeling a surge of energy in his fingers that jolted his wrists and stiffened his arms.

“Do you want to be free?” the old man asked softly.

“Yes, yes.”

“It is possible. To be free, you must see things as they are.”

“That’s all?”

“That is a lot,” the old man said, and got to his feet. “Now sleep.”

He led Dwight through the courtyard. “Stars,” Dwight said. “You don’t see these in Mumbai.”

As if obeying a subtle cue, the old man walked a few steps away, toward a gateway carved with images of animals and gods.

In an urgent whisper, Shah said, “You are so lucky. No one knows you here. It is as though you don’t exist. You can be peaceful. You can think about your life. Meditate, my friend. Open your heart. What is the world? A flame in the wind. A flash of lightning in a summer cloud. So beautiful.”

Dwight said, “How can I thank you?”

“Trust me with your valuables,” Shah said, clutching the briefcase.

“They’re nothing. A bubble in a stream.”

The old man was watching, the light from the candles giving him the bright eyes of a nocturnal animal.

“I’ll leave first thing,” Shah said. “And then I’ll be away.”

“Whatever.”

Shah said, “I’ll stay in the States for a while.”

Dwight said, “I think I’ll stay here for a while.”

In the darkness of his cubicle, Dwight slept as though drugged. He lay on his back, lightly covered by a clean sheet, breathing the residue of the night’s incense.

At first light he was aware of Shah leaving, gathering his bags, scuffing his sandals on the path outside. Dwight simply held his breath and waited for silence to descend. The car doors slammed, the engine raced, and then, like a fly’s buzz fading, the sound of the car was overlaid by silence again. And with that silence and Shah’s departure a sweet fragrance filled his room.

Dwight imagined Shah in the car, heading back to Mumbai, rubbing his hands, probably making a gleeful call on his cell phone, hooting into it, something like, “It is done!” Shah thought he’d pulled a fast one, secured the Harvard account, ingratiated himself with Sheely and Kohut and Elfman—all the while keeping Dwight in the dark. He had maneuvered him to this ashram, divested him of his laptop, and was going off to get rich. He believed that he had fooled Dwight.

No, it had been a favor, a gift.

Once, at Shah’s house, at that dinner, hearing Shah describe his mendicant father, Dwight had had a vision of himself as a holy man on a dusty road, swinging a stick, eating an apple. He had laughed then, because it had seemed so improbable, and it had been a way of jeering at himself. Now, lying on a narrow cot in the tidy room freshened by the fizz of leaves and the morning air at his open window, he saw himself again, a skinny sunburned geek in a turban and loincloth, carrying a wooden staff, and strolling down a country road, craving nothing except more life—happy, seeing things as they were.

Walking toward the railway station, its dome like a huge head, its scrollwork and buttresses suggesting big ears, Alice smiled at the way the old building glittered like a great gray creature of granite, but closer it was just fakery, India mimicking England, a hodgepodge of disappointed Gothic. Alice hesitated at the archway, then stepped through the entrance. Inside it was a nut house, and it stank. The smells of India still terrified her. From a distance, India was splendor; up close, misery.

A man with stumps for hands, just rounded wrists, approached her with pleading eyes and lips. She gave him a ten-rupee note but could not bear to see him manipulate it. She had to brave the waiting room because her friend Stella was late, as usual. Pretty girls were never punctual—was it another way of being noticed? Pretty girls were always forgiven. Pretty girls could be peculiarly reckless and were seldom harmed or blamed because they were pretty. And the weird thing was that pretty girls never believed they were pretty enough.