A Meeting by the River
There was no way out of the situation except to get it over as quickly as possible. I made the appointment with Rafferty and he interviewed Olly yesterday morning. Without asking our permission, he had the nerve to bring half a dozen local Indian journalists and photographers along with him. Poor old Olly! He seems to have been most cooperative—though with an underlying grimness, no doubt—answering all their questions and posing for innumerable pictures. Rafferty was delighted. Of course, the Calcutta papers will be full of this stuff. I can hardly believe that any editor in London will think it worth a real spread. But, supposing it does appear, how will Mother react? With her, you never know. She’s equally capable of suing for libel or swelling with maternal pride and showing photos of her bald-headed son to everybody in the village! It entirely depends on whether she decides that the newspaper’s attitude to Olly has been what she calls ‘properly appreciative’ or the reverse!
I have only managed to see Olly once since the interview, and then we weren’t alone. I murmured into his ear, ‘I hope you don’t think this was my doing?’ He looked away and answered, almost inaudibly, ‘It’s not important.’ So I judged it better to shut up.
Still I must say frankly that in one way I’m glad all this has happened—because now the situation has been pushed to a crisis, now it seems that we have really got to have this thing out between us, whether Olly likes it or not.
If only there was more time! We are getting alarmingly close to Olly’s première!
Will keep you posted, blow by blow!
Goodnight, my love,
Paddy
When I first realized what Patrick had done, I had a spasm of rage which was like something you only feel in childhood, I could have killed him, almost.
But then I saw this situation was really offering itself as a test. As a matter of fact, if Patrick hadn’t been present, I could easily have talked myself out of having to give the interview, for Maharaj wasn’t in the least set on it. It’s his own utter lack of interest in publicity—how unlike most European churchmen!—which makes him regard this sort of thing as a quite unimportant harmless joke. And I must learn to take the same attitude. After all, I certainly don’t expect to spend the rest of my life hidden away in seclusion from the world. Being what I am, I shall always be an object of curiosity to some people, perhaps quite a lot of people—and even more so if I go back to Europe, which I probably shall sooner or later, for a while at least.
One lesson I learned from the Rafferty incident is that it’s very important to enter willingly into the game. To submit like a sulky slave, to say you can do what you want with me but I’m determined to remain my uncompromising unattractive self—that’s nothing but aggression and negative vanity. No, one must try hard to be pleasant and look one’s best, shave carefully, comb one’s hair beforehand. (This time I didn’t have to worry about my hair, and anyhow they delighted in my bald head, though I suppose I’d have been even more newsworthy naked and smeared with ashes!) Actually I got along quite well with that absurd man and his colleagues. It was embarrassing of course—one would have to be very advanced to do this kind of thing absolutely unselfconsciously. One feels a bit of a fake and so one suffers, but that’s merely vanity of another sort. It’s Oliver who is the fake, and I don’t have to identify with him. Next time I shall try to remember that and I hope I shall do better. I’m sure it will come more easily with practice.
Of course it’s entirely possible that Patrick got me into this mess without realizing what he was doing. But let’s assume that he did realize, that he deliberately arranged the whole thing because he wanted to make me face up to the comic picture of myself which the world will always have—the Englishman in Hindu masquerade, the holy fraud. Even so, I ought to be deeply grateful to him, because this is something I’ve got to face and it’s true that I haven’t been facing it properly, up to now. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been so furious with Patrick when it happened.
These last three nights he’s been coming to the Temple for vespers, with Swami K. It must have been Swami K.’s idea. This can’t be anything more than curiosity on Patrick’s part. Perhaps he’s ‘discovered’ Hindu Music and decided that it’s somehow avant-garde. I find that kind of European aestheticism disgustingly patronizing, but that’s only my personal reaction and I have no right to call it a pose, even.
This morning, Patrick did something else which upset me all over again and will go on upsetting me, I know, if I let it.
I was on my way to Swami’s seat, meaning to spend some time there with my beads. As I came round the corner of the Mahanta’s house, I saw Patrick and Swami K. walking a little way ahead of me. I thought they must be going to visit Mahanta Maharaj, but they walked on, past the steps and the fountain and right over to the seat. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but no doubt it was only the usual polite chitchat. Neither of them seemed to lead the way, it just happened. When they got to the seat Patrick did stop, though, as if inviting Swami K. to sit down—which he did, and then Patrick sat down beside him. That was when they both saw me. Swami K. smiled, but he didn’t sign to me to come over and join them—not that that in itself proves anything, I admit. Patrick looked slightly guilty, I thought, but that may have been my imagination. Anyhow, I quickly changed my course and went up the steps to Mahanta Maharaj’s room, I had something I wanted to ask him, anyhow. When I came out again, about ten minutes later, Swami K. and Patrick had gone.
So, of course, I’ve been through another violently negative mood. When I saw Patrick sit down on Swami’s seat, I felt like some little teen-age novice watching jealously over his guru, his precious property, and snarling at all intruders. Swami’s seat is my territory. I don’t even like to see the senior swamis of the Order sitting on it—and that Patrick, of all people, should dare!
But now, that’s enough!
I’m beginning to fear that this diary-keeping has been bad and harmful for me, after all. Perhaps I’ve been deceiving myself about my motives for keeping it. Perhaps, instead of disciplining Oliver, I’ve been indulging him and giving him power over me. So I’ll now make two resolves:
No more entries in this diary, at least not until after sannyas.
I will stay away from Patrick altogether until sannyas is over. Patrick must never meet Oliver again. Next time, Patrick will meet Swami Somethingananda. (I only hope they give me a name which won’t be too hard for Mother to pronounce!)
There’s the rest of today (about nine hours) and then tomorrow, and the next day, and then it starts. Then Oliver must die.
As the time gets shorter, I run through all sorts of feelings. I’m afraid, and then numb and incredulous; I can’t believe it’s going to happen to me, to me; then I feel quite irresponsible and rather amused, it’s a big joke; and then I realize, for a moment or two, that it is going to happen, and I’m wildly happy, and then afraid again.
Am I prepared? No, of course I’m not. How could I be? How can you honestly say you’re prepared for death? This is a death followed by a rebirth, but for me the death is the important part of it. Swami used to say No, it’s what you become that matters, not what you cease to be. But then he was speaking as a swami, from the other side of the experience. I must try in every way I can to make a true death out of this ceremony and leave the old Oliver behind. As for what comes afterwards, I must just have faith.
Tom,
I haven’t written for nearly one whole week! It seems incredible when I reckon it up. Now I’m afraid my silence may have worried you. I can’t explain it myself. Perhaps it’s because I think about you so often and so intensely that I get the feeling we’re in communication with each other all the time and actual letter-writing is hardly even necessary. I hope you feel something like that too? Still, I realize our situations aren’t the same. You have the right to expect to hear from me. I know I can’t expect to hear from you until I leave this place. Naturally I’m longing for that thrilling moment when I walk into the hotel in Singapore and ask at
the desk for my mail and shuffle quickly through it, looking for the letters from you! How many will there be—three, four, five, six? No, I mustn’t be greedy. How many there are isn’t what’s really important. I know that a lot of things can keep you from writing often—your job, your classes, people you have to see. I’ll be quite content with only one letter, as long as your love is in it.
What I want to tell you tonight is this—as far as I’m concerned, our relationship seems to keep on growing stronger and deeper, although we’re apart. I mean this literally! It’s very strange, something I have never experienced before with anyone.
Last time I wrote to you I was feeling awful. I needed you so badly. It was chiefly a physical need, I admit, and it was torture, pure and simple. It built up inside me until I could hardly bear it, and then came a terrific release, in a dream. I’ve had plenty of sexual dreams, of course, but never anything like this one. This was much more than a dream, it was so intense it was a sort of vision. I mean, there was a burning pleasure and then an utter fulfillment with you, nearly as good as that shattering moment we had together at Tunnel Cove. But the whole experience went far beyond just sex, it was actually a glimpse of a life which you and I were living together! That’s why I call it a vision. Tom, I’m certain this wasn’t an ordinary dream-fantasy built up out of memories of the past. Explain it any way you want, I know I was experiencing something which hasn’t happened yet and perhaps never will happen, but which could. And our act of love, besides being thrilling in itself, expressed what our whole life together could be like—was a sample of it, so to speak. I suppose, as far as that goes, I could equally well have dreamed we were cooking a meal together or hiking in the mountains—those would have been samples too, and quite as revealing, in their different ways! I wish I could be more specific but I can’t, it’s all so hard to describe. Well yes, I can tell you one thing—this life I got a glimpse of was of such a closeness as I’d never even imagined could exist between two human beings, because it was a life entirely without fear.
I’ve told you how I’ve always been very much attached to my brother Oliver. I’ve always felt we could have come far closer to each other than we have, if it hadn’t been for his ruthlessly independent, self-sufficient attitude, even as a boy. Oliver is certainly one of the most extraordinary and admirable people I have ever met, but he goes his own way in all things. He doesn’t need other people, as I do and as I feel sure you do.
Tommy, since I had that dream, I’m certain that you could be my brother—the kind of brother I now know I’ve been searching for all these years, without ever quite daring to admit to myself what it was that I wanted. I suppose I was frightened off by the taboos which surround the idea of brotherhood in the family sense—oh yes, they encourage you to love your brother, but only as far as the limits they’ve set—beyond that, it’s a deadly sin and a horror. What I want is a life beyond their taboos, in which two men learn to trust each other so completely that there’s no fear left and they experience and share everything together in the flesh and in the spirit. I don’t believe such closeness is possible between a man and a woman—deep down they are natural enemies—and how many men ever find it together? Only a very few even glimpse the possibility of it, and only a very few out of that few dare to try to find it.
We are going to dare, aren’t we? We must, Tom, or we shall never forgive ourselves. I feel as if I haven’t begun to live yet, and I never shall begin unless you’re ready to stand by me. But of course I know you are. You are marvellously full of courage, it’s one of the most lovable things about you.
I feel a bit ashamed of my last letter to you—the part where I wrote that we should have to be crafty and cunning. I see now how cowardly that attitude is. No, we must be absolutely without fear. That’s why it’s wrong for us to plot little plots, about your working with me on this film, pretending to be nothing more than an employee, and so forth. That’s a false approach. It would be an utterly fatal way for us to be together, especially now at the beginning. Everything would be poisoned with lies and playacting.
Somehow or other we must find the time and opportunity to go away, right away from everybody, to a place where we can be alone, until we have broken down all the last little remaining barriers between us—we shall discover what they are by degrees, petty suspicions and shames and pockets of false pride. When those are gone we can face other people without fear and let them see us as we are. We won’t be aggressive, but we won’t attempt to hide anything. Then it’ll be up to the others to decide how they’ll react—accept us or reject us. And, do you know, I have faith that we shall be accepted, at any rate by the ones we really care about? I believe that our being together is going to find its place and fit in amongst the other relationships of our lives, without even causing any great disturbance! Perhaps you’ll laugh at this or get impatient with me, saying to yourself that it’s more of Patrick’s madly irrational optimism, he takes it for granted that the world must give him anything if he wants it badly enough! Well, I admit to the optimism. But let’s wait and see who’s right!
I am very glad I came here, Tom. I mean, quite apart from the fascinating experience of seeing Oliver again. Being in this Monastery and talking to these old men, who are so wise in their own kind of wisdom and so childlike in ours, has taught me a lot and made me able to understand many things more clearly. I suppose I used to be inwardly intimidated by this sort of aloof holiness, so I covered up my feelings of inferiority by making fun of it. Now I shall never have to do that again. I don’t mean that I now feel superior because I’ve lost my respect for these swamis, or seen through them—on the contrary, the better I get to know and understand them, the more I admire them. They can truly be described as holy men. And when I say that they’re childlike, I mean nothing bad. It isn’t that they’ve failed to mature. They are grown men who have made a deliberate decision—they want no part of the problems of adult life in our world so they have turned their backs on it. Well, that’s their affair. It’s true that what they call renunciation is what we would call rejection of responsibility, but nevertheless it isn’t an easy thing to do. It even involves sacrifices, very real ones. It isn’t easy to turn yourself back into a child again—the Bible points that out somewhere, I seem to recall vaguely.
Children are extraordinarily wise, in their own way. (I have two of my own, remember, so I speak with authority!) You can learn a great deal from them, provided you never forget that they are children and that you’re an adult. There are many things they just do not know, however, and about those things it’s no good, indeed it’s plain ridiculous, to ask them for help or advice or even understanding.
I have been talking to some of the swamis about their philosophy and ethics, these last few days, and now I have a pretty fair idea what kind of answers they’d give to some of the more basic questions. For instance, I’m reasonably sure a Hindu monk wouldn’t be disgusted, like some prudish Christian parson, at the mere mention of sex between two men. They are far more broad-minded here than we in England or America can ever really be, even if we call ourselves sophisticated, because we’ve been trained since childhood to regard certain kinds of sex as wicked. To the Hindu monk, all sex is ultimately just sex. However, he’ll then tell you that any kind of sex keeps you in bondage to the life of the world, which he persists in regarding as evil! He’ll agree, rather grudgingly, that as long as you remain a householder it’s all right to use sex for having children—but those who seek enlightenment (and they’re the few who aren’t merely frittering away their time on earth, from his point of view) must give it up entirely! The plain truth is that these good little swamis have never had sex of any kind themselves and therefore they simply cannot imagine what sex can mean to two people who love each other, and how much more than sex it can become. Since sex is just sex to them, it follows logically that it doesn’t really matter who you have it with. I suppose they’d exclaim to me in sheer bewilderment, ‘But you’ve got a wife, so you’ve got sex a
lready, so what more do you want?’
I hope I don’t have to reassure you that I’ve conducted these inquiries with the greatest discretion and in a most impersonal manner? I’ll guarantee nobody here has the faintest suspicion that the problem of you-and-me exists. Not even Oliver. The time may come when he’ll have to be told, but not for a long while, and never until you agree with me that he should know about us. I’d like it best if we could stand in front of him, hand in hand, and tell him simply, ‘We’re together!’
Tom, I feel strangely certain that one day I shall have you and you’ll have me, somehow, somewhere. Let’s have faith that it will happen—because it must! As far as I’m concerned, being with you is Life. The alternative is non-living, and I refuse to accept that any longer. You are my one chance. If I miss you, I know in my bones that I’ll never get another.
This letter sounds positively mystical, doesn’t it? Don’t laugh at it, please, or at
your Patrick.
6
Last night I broke one of my resolves and this morning I’m breaking the other—I’ve seen Patrick again, and now I’m going to write about it in this diary. I have got to. The only possible alternative would be to tell someone what happened and what we said to each other, and that’s out of the question.
Shortly before seven, yesterday evening, a boy came running from the Lodge to tell me I was wanted on the telephone. I was astonished, of course. This was the first time I’d ever been called to the phone since I’ve been here.