“Oh, nothing,” I said. “I was just dreaming.”
“Val, do something, please! Don’t let’s go on this way. Look at this place! How did we ever get here? What are we doing here? We’re a little mad too, you and I. Val, do start in—tonight, yes? I like you when you’re moody. I like to think that you have thoughts about other things. I like it when you say crazy things. I wish I could think that way. I’d give anything to be a writer. To have a mind, to dream, to get lost in other people’s problems, to think of something else beside work and money. . . . You remember that story you wrote for me once—about Tony and Joey? Why don’t you write something for me again? Just for me. Val, we must try to do something . . . we must find a way out. Do you hear?”
I had heard only too well. Her words were running in my head like a refrain.
I jumped up, as if to brush the cobwebs away. I caught her by the waist and held her at arm’s length. “Mona, things are going to be different soon. Very soon. I feel it. . . . Let me walk you to the station—I need a breath of air.”
I could see that she was slightly disappointed; she had hoped for something more positive.
“Mona,” I said, as we walked rapidly down the street, “one doesn’t change all at once, like that! I do want to write, yes, I’m sure of it. But I’ve got to collect myself. I don’t ask to have it easy, but I need a little tranquillity. I can’t switch from one thing to another so easily. I hate my job just as much as you hate yours. And I don’t want another job; I want a complete break. I want to be with myself for a while, see how it feels. I hardly know myself, living the way I do. I’m engulfed. I know all about others—and nothing about myself. I know only that I feel. I feel too much. I’m drained dry. I wish I could have days, weeks, months, just to think. Now I think from moment to moment. It’s a luxury, to think.”
She squeezed my hand, as if to tell me she understood.
“When I get back to the house I’m going to sit down and try to think. Maybe I’ll fall asleep. It seems as though I were geared up only for action. I’ve become a machine.
“Do you know what I think sometimes?” I went on. “I think that if I had two or three quiet days of just sheer thinking I’d upset everything. Fundamentally everything is cockeyed. It’s that way because we don’t dare to let ourselves think. I ought to go to the office one day and blow out Spivak’s brains. That’s the first step. . . .”
We had come to the elevated station.
“Don’t think about such things just now,” she said. “Sit down and dream. Dream something wonderful for me. Don’t think about those ugly little people. Think of us!”
She ran up the steps lightly, waving goodbye.
I was strolling leisurely back to the house, dreaming of another, richer life, when suddenly I remembered, or thought I remembered, her leaving the two fifty-dollar bills on the mantelpiece under the vase filled with artificial flowers. I could see them sticking out halfway, just as she had placed them. I broke into a trot. I knew that if Kronski saw them he would filch them. He would do it not because he was dishonest but to torture me.
As I drew near the house I thought of Crazy Sheldon. I even began to imitate his way of speaking, though I was out of breath from running. I was laughing to myself as I opened the door.
The room was empty and the money was gone. I knew it would be thus. I sat down and laughed again. Why hadn’t I said anything to Mona about Monahan? Why hadn’t I mentioned anything to her about the theater? Usually I spilled things out immediately, but this time something had held me back, some instinctive distrust of Monahan’s intentions.
I was on the point of calling up the dance hall to see if by chance Mona had taken the money without my noticing it. I got up to go to the telephone but on the way I changed my mind. The impulse seized me to explore the house a bit. I wandered to the rear of the house and descended the stairs. After a few steps I came upon a large room with blinding lights in which the laundry was drying. There was a bench along one wall, as in a school room, and on it sat an old man with a white beard and a velvet skull cap. He was bent forward, his head resting on the back of his hand, supported by a cane. He seemed to be gazing blankly into space.
He gave a sign of recognition with his eyes; his body remained immobile. I had seen many members of the family but never him. I greeted him in German, thinking he would prefer that to English, which no one seemed to speak in this queer house.
“You can talk English if you like,” he said, in a thick accent. He gazed straight ahead into space, as before.
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Not at all.”
I thought I ought to tell him who I was. “My name is . . .”
“And I,” said he, without waiting to hear my name, “am Dr. Onirifick’s father. He never told you about me, I suppose?”
“No,” I said, “he never did. But then I hardly ever see him.”
“He’s a very busy man. Too busy perhaps . . .
“But he will be punished one day,” he continued. “One must not murder, not even the unborn. It is better here—there is peace.”
“Wouldn’t you like me to put out some of the lights?” I asked, hoping to divert his thoughts to some other subject.
“There should be light,” he answered. “More light . . . more light. He works in darkness up there. He is too proud. He works for the devil. It is better here with the wet clothes.” He was silent for a moment. There was the sound of drops of water falling from the wet garments. I gave a shudder. I thought of the blood dripping from Dr. Onirifick’s hands. “Yes, drops of blood,” said the old man, as if reading my thoughts. “He is a butcher. He gives his mind to death. This is the greatest darkness of the human mind—killing what is struggling to be born. Even animals one should not kill, except in sacrifice. My son knows everything—but he doesn’t know that murder is the greatest sin. There is light here . . . great light . . . and he sits up there in darkness. His father sits in the cellar, praying for him, and he is up there butchering, butchering. Everywhere there is blood. The house is polluted. It is better here with the wash. I would wash the money too, if I could. This is the only clean room in the house. And the light is good. Light. Light. We must open their eyes so that they can see. Man must not work in darkness. The mind must be clear, the mind must know what it is doing.”
I said nothing. I listened respectfully, hypnotized by the droning words, the blinding light. The old man had the face and manners of a patrician; the toga he wore and the velvet skullcap accentuated his lofty air. His fine sensitive hands were those of a surgeon; the blue veins stood out like quicksilver. In his overlighted dungeon he sat like a court physician who had been banished from his native land. He reminded me vividly of certain celebrated physicians who had flourished at the court of Spain during the time of the Moors. There was a silvery, musical quality about him; his spirit was clean and it radiated from every pore of his being.
Presently I heard the patter of slippered feet. It was Ghompal arriving with a bowl of hot milk. Immediately the old man’s expression altered. He leaned back against the wall and looked at Ghompal with warmth and tenderness.
“This is my son, my true son,” he said, turning his full gaze upon me.
I exchanged a few words with Ghompal as he held the bowl to the old man’s lips. It was a pleasure to watch the Hindu. No matter how menial the task he performed it with dignity. The more humble the service the more ennobled he became. He seemed never to be embarrassed or humiliated. Neither did he efface himself. He remained always the same, always completely and uniquely himself. I tried to imagine what Kronski would look like performing such a service.
Ghompal left the room for a few moments to return with a pair of warm bedroom slippers. He knelt at the old man’s feet and, as he performed this rite, the old man gently stroked Ghompal’s head.
“You are one of the sons of light,” said the old man, lifting Ghompal’s head back and looking into his eyes with a steady clear gaze. Ghompal returne
d the old man’s gaze with the same clear liquescent light. They seemed to flood each other’s being—two reservoirs of liquid light spilling over in a purifying exchange. Suddenly I realized that the blinding light which streamed from the unshaded electric bulbs was as nothing in comparison to this emanation of light which had passed between the two. Perhaps the old man was unaware of this yellow, artificial light which man had invented; perhaps the room was illuminated by this floodlight which came from his soul. Even now, though they had ceased gazing into one another’s eyes, the room was appreciably lighter than before. It was like the afterglow of a fiery sunset, a supernal luminosity.
I stole back to the living room to await Ghompal. He had something to tell me. I found Kronski seated in the armchair reading one of my books. He was ostensibly calmer, quieter, than usual, not subdued but settled in some queer, undisciplined way.
“Hullo! I didn’t know you were home,” he said, startled by my unexpected presence. “I was just glancing at some of your junk.” He threw the book aside. It was The Hill of Dreams.*
Before he had a chance to resume his habitual banter Ghompal entered. He walked towards me holding the money in his hand. I took it with a smile, thanked him, and put it in my pocket. To Kronski it appeared that I was borrowing from Ghompal. He was irritated—more than that—indignant.
“Jesus, do you have to borrow from him?” he blurted out.
Ghompal spoke up at once, but Kronski cut him short.
“You don’t have to lie for him. I know his tricks.”
Ghompal spoke up again, quietly, convincingly.
“Mr. Miller doesn’t play tricks with me,” he said.
“All right, you win,” said Kronski. “But Jesus, don’t make an angel of him. I know he’s been good to you—and to all your comrades on the messenger force—but that’s not because he has a good heart. . . . He’s taken a fancy to you Hindus because you’re queer fish, see?”
Ghompal smiled at him indulgently, as if he understood the aberrations of a sick mind.
Kronski reacted testily to this smile of Ghompal’s. “Don’t give me that commiserating smile,” he screeched. “I’m not a wretched outcast. I’m a doctor of medicine. I’m a . . .”
“You’re still a child,” said Ghompal quietly and firmly. “Anybody with a little intelligence can become a doctor . . .”
At this Kronski sneered vehemently. “They can, eh? Just like that, hah? Just like rolling off a log . . .” He looked around as if searching for a place to spit.
“In India we say . . .”—and Ghompal began one of those childlike stories which are devastating to the analytical-minded person. He had a little story for every situation, Ghompal. I relished them hugely; they were like simple, homeopathic remedies, little pellets of truth garbed in some innocuous cloak. You could never forget them afterwards, that was what I liked about these yarns. We write fat books to expound a simple idea; the Oriental tells a simple, pointed story which lodges in your brain like a diamond. The story he was narrating was about a glowworm that had been bruised by the naked foot of an absent-minded philosopher. Kronski detested anecdotes in which lower forms of life communicated with higher beings, such as man, on an intellectual level. He felt it to be a personal humiliation, an invidious aspersion.
In spite of himself he had to smile at the conclusion of the tale. Besides, he was already repentant of his crude behavior. He had a profound respect for Ghompal. It nettled him that he had been obliged to turn sharply on Ghompal when he meant merely to crush me. So, still smiling, he inquired in a kindly voice about Ghose, one of the Hindus who had returned to India some months ago.
Ghose had died of dysentery shortly after arriving in India, Ghompal informed him.
“That’s lousy,” said Kronski, shaking his head despairingly, as if to imply that it was hopeless to combat conditions in a country like India. Then, turning to me, with a sad flicker of a smile. “You remember Ghose, don’t you? The fat, chubby little guy, like a squatting Buddha.”
I nodded. “I should say I do remember him. Didn’t I raise the money for him to go back to India?”
“Ghose was a saint,” said Kronski vehemently.
A mild flicker of a frown came over Ghompal’s face. “No, not a saint,” he said. “We have many men in India who . . .”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Kronski broke in. “Just the same, to me Ghose was a saint. Dysentery! Good Christ! it’s like the Middle Ages . . . worse than that!” And he launched into a terrifying description of the diseases which still flourished in India. And from disease to poverty and from poverty to superstition and from these to slavery, degradation, despair, indifference, hopelessness. India was just a vast, rotting sepulcher, a charnel house dominated by conniving British exploiters in league with demented and perfidious rajahs and maharajahs. Not a word about the architecture, the music, the learning, the religion, the philosophies, the beautiful physiognomies, the grace and delicacy of the women, the colorful garments, the pungent odors, the tinkling bells, the great gongs, the gorgeous landscapes, the riot of flowers, the incessant processions, the clash of tongues, races, types, the fermentation and pullulation amidst death and corruption. Statistically correct as always, he succeeded only in presenting the negative half of the picture. India was bleeding to death, true. But the part of her that was alive was resplendent in a way that Kronski could never appreciate. He never once mentioned a city by name, never differentiated between Agra and Delhi, Lahore and Mysore, Darjeeling and Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, Benares and Colombo. Parsi, Jain, Hindu, Buddhist—they were all one, all miserable victims of oppression, all rotting slowly under a murderous sun to make an imperialist holiday.
Between him and Ghompal there now ensued a discussion to which I only half listened. Each time I heard the name of a city I went on an emotional jag. The very mention of such words as Bengal, Gujarat, Malabar Coast, Kali-ghat, Nepal, Kashmir, Sikh, Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads, raga, stupa, prakriti, Sudra, paranirvana, chela, guru, Hanuman, Siva, was sufficient to put me in a trance for the rest of the evening. How could a man condemned to lead the restricted life of a physician in a cold, brutal city like New York dare to talk about setting in order a continent of half a billion souls whose problems were so vast, so multiform, as to stagger the imagination of India’s own great pundits? No wonder he was attracted to the saintly characters whom he had made contact with in the infernal regions of the most Cosmococcic Corporation of America. These “boys,” as Ghompal called them (they ranged from twenty-three to thirty-five years of age), were like picked warriors, like chosen disciples. The hardships they had endured, first in getting to America, then struggling to keep body and soul together while finishing their studies, then finding the means to return, then renouncing everything in order to devote themselves to the advancement of their people—well, no American, no white American, anyway, could brag of anything comparable. When now and then one of these “boys” went astray, became the lapdog of some society woman or the slave of some ravishing dancer, I felt like rejoicing. It did me good to hear of a Hindu boy lolling on soft cushions, eating rich foods, wearing diamond rings, dancing at night clubs, driving cars, seducing young virgins, and so on. I recalled a cultured young Parsi who had run off with some languorous middle-aged woman of dubious reputation; I remembered the malicious stories that were spread about him, the demoralization that he brought about among the less disciplined ones. It was grand. I followed his career with avidity, lapping up the dregs, imaginatively, as he moved from sphere to sphere. And then one day, when I was lying ill in the morgue which my wife had made of my room, he came to see me, bringing flowers and fruit and books, and he sat by my bed and held my hand, talked to me of India, of the wondrous life he had known as a child, of the miseries he had endured subsequently, of the humiliations inflicted upon him by Americans, of his hunger for life, a large life, a rich life, a splendorous life, and how he grabbed the opportunity when it came and found it empty, empty of everything but clothes,
jewels, money, women. He was giving it all up, he confided. He would go back to his people, suffer with them, raise them up if he could, and if not, die with them, die as they died, in the street, naked, homeless, shunned, despised, stepped on, walked over, spat upon, a bundle of bones which even the vultures would find it difficult to feast on. He would do this not out of guilt, remorse or repentance but because India in rags, India festering like a maggot, India starving, India writhing under the heel of the conqueror, meant more to him than all the comforts, opportunities and advantages of a heartless country like America. He was a Parsi, I say, and his family had been rich once; he had known a happy childhood at least. But there were other Hindus who had been reared in forest and field, who had lived what to us would seem an animal existence. How these obscure, shy, individuals ever surmounted the stupendous obstacles which confronted them from day to day remains a mystery to me to this day. With them, at any rate, I traveled the roads that lead from village to town and town to city; with them I listened to the songs of simple folk, the tales of elderly men, the prayers of the devout, the admonitions of the gurus, the legends of the storytellers, the music of the street players, the wails and lamentations of the mourners. Through their eyes I saw the desolation wreaked upon a great people. But I saw also that there are qualities which survive the greatest desolation. In their faces, as they related their experiences, I saw reflected the gentleness, the humility, the reverence, the devotion, the faith, the truthfulness and the integrity of those millions whose destiny baffles and disturbs us. They die like flies and they are reborn; they increase and multiply; they offer up prayers and sacrifices, they resist not, and yet no foreign devil can extirpate them from the soil which they nourish with their own impoverished carcasses. They are of all kinds, all conditions, all shades, all tongues, all cults; they shoot up like weeds and are trampled down like weeds. To lift the curtain upon even the tiniest segment of this seething life leaves the mind reeling with incertitude. Some are like hard-cut gems, some like rare flowers, some like monuments, some like blazing images of the divine, some like disembodied minds, some like rotting vegetables: side by side they move in an endless, confused throng.