I HAVE NOW TAKEN a room off the Boulevard St-Michel, just where the rue de Vaugirard goes up by the Lycée St-Louis. My room is on the seventh floor-I had long been waiting to live up here, and had asked for it week after week at the hotel. Now, I have it. It's a small mansard room but from my window the whole of Paris lies spread like a palm-leaf fan under me. Beyond the terrace of the Lycée St-Louis line after line of walls, towers and coloured chimneys rise into the air, and then suddenly down be- low you see the green Seine under the bridges, and to the right, as though abruptly put aside, the parvis of Notre-Dame.
Et nous tiendrons le coup, rivés sur notre rame, Forçats fils de forçats aux deux rives de Seine Galériens couchés aux pieds de Notre-Dame.
Behind me I can feel, though I cannot see, the history--almost the architecture of time-out of which the garden and the Palace of Luxembourg were born. I often walk there, breathing the clean sane air of the park, and see the children play about, setting their ships to sail all over the waters. They must indeed wander through many lands, encircle many continents:
Vaisseau de pourpre et d'or, de myrrhe et de cinname, Double vaisseau de charge aux pieds de Notre-Dame.
And when I am tired, I come and sit by one of those stiff chairs that seem especially reserved for lovers, by the Medici fountain. The water drips and seems to make us forget time, as if it were a cravat pulled loose to one side. For here, woman whispers to man seated on the lap of the sun. I close my book and go down the Boulevard St-Michel, feeling that between the top of the hill and the parvis of Notre-Dame is the real sanctuary of Europe.
'When we speak in universal terms of class and category, do these terms correspond to realities existing outside the mind?' asked scholars at the beginning of the Middle Ages. 'When we speak of the species man and the species animal, do these terms awaken ideas of collection? And does the idea of collection cor- respond to a reality outside the mind, or is it a mere concept of the mind? And if these terms, or universals are not mere con- cepts, but do correspond to realities, what is their nature? Are they corporeal entities? And further, what is their mode of existing? Do they have their being outside the sensual domain, that is outside the individual, or do they lodge within?' Thus and for a thousand years, through Abelard, St Thomas Aquinas and Dante, and all the monks and poets, going down the cen- turies, through the alleyways and hard earth of the Sorbonne, you feel the western world has breathed and shaped itself; and he who walks in Paris here, walks somewhere in the steady light of recovered Truth. Now and again, when I am stuck in my work and I can dip into silence and find nothing to say, nothing to sound, to illumine me, I seek over the walls for an answer, I seek through the space above the river for an answer, I look at the twin towers of Notre- Dame. I say a prayer to the Mother of God, at such times: Marie pleine de grace, Mère de Dieu." And she always knows and she always answers, for the womb of the world is She.
And when I have shaped a sentence to my satisfaction, word after word repeated back to silence, rediscovered through a back- ward movement and made whole, reverberant and true, I leave the authenticity of it on the page, and wonder that these round and flat shapes could name meaning as they do. I shiver at the thought that one can speak. I repeat some verse from a trouba- dour, and then tell myself that only half a century ago, perhaps, Verlaine walked these very streets, drunk, and not knowing how to say his own name. It is good to forget's one's name, it makes one a saint.
So much of Faris rises up, evening after evening, as I sit in this room and work-ghosts, dignitaries, crusaders, kings, poets- that I want to get out, to walk out where no man has ever walked, no one has gver borne his own torture.
J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans.
Then I go down the steps, ring up Georges from the bureau of the hotel, for I have no telephone in my room, and when they say come they always do-I jump into the 83 bus at the Gare Montparnasse, linger a little by the river as usual, then cross over and take the 63. Down La Muette I walk as if I were in blyder- abad or Mysore, and the street were one that father and son we had walked, so personal it has become. It is always Catherine who opens the door, with her splendid rich smile as if one could possess happiness with the same certitude of holding a baby in one's arms.
'Vera is sleeping,' she said one day, knowing Vera had be- come a great friend of mine. 'She's had fever, you know, Rama, and I was so frightened. But Georges said it was nothing, just the effect of the temperature outside going up and down in a way that even our adult bodies are not strong enough to bear. Tell me, how are you?' Georges was standing behind me, as I removed my coat; I could feel him take my scarf and hat, and hang them on the rack. 'It's nice to see you, Rama. How terrible to think France is becoming like Russia. It has been twenty-five degrees below at Luxeuil. Can you imagine it! In the Luxembourg even old men have begun to take to skating."
'Georges will not allow me to do any patinage in the Bois. But when I see men and women carrying skates I want so much to go, and say, "Gee" like that, and swirl and fall on myself. I love snow and all that is white,' Catherine said. 'White, snow- white is my colour."
I went in and we sat on the green plush from Aix. Oncle Charles had been very ill.
"When the strong fall ill, it's like a bull falling-you need three other bulls to help you out of it,' said Catherine, 'not like horse. Georges falls ill and rises as if it were a game he were playing; I never can believe in his illness. Tante Zoubie is so worried.'
I promised we would go there the week after. And then Catherine gave me a letter from Madeleine.
Madeleine spoke of my visit to her. 'It's all like a ghost story,' she wrote, 'Rama, India-and the world. Contemplation is the only truth one has. I pray that I be forgiven for my sins-my ignorances, the Buddhist text would call them. By the way, Cathy, before Rama leaves for India, don't you think it would be wise for the legalities to be settled, once and for all? My own future is settled. I want nothing: what I earn teaching will suffice me for a lifetime. So I have been thinking that Vera, and others who will come after her, should have everything. Anyway it all belongs to the family, my properties in the Charente, in Rouen, and even that plot of land in St Médard. I will just keep mother's house at Saintongel. Just å spot to call my own, that is all; and that again only as long as I live.
'I am sure it would also be wise to give Rama his freedom. He must marry someone younger from his own country. He will be happy with an Indian woman, I have no doubt. I know talking like this is painful, but truth has some day to be faced. In any case Rama must go back to his family; his lungs cannot bear our climate any more. Besides, why would he want to stay in France? Nowadays divorce has become so easy. You could perhaps tact- fully put it to Oncle Charles. Better still, why don't you consult someone there, while I consult someone here?'
It was, of course, the inevitable, and by the inevitable nobody has yet been surprised: you know what is going to happen before surprise dawns on you. So quite simply I accepted to go to a lawyer in Paris. Georges knew of a very able Russian-born advocate, who would make everything easy. Meanwhile Made- leine went to see a notary in Aix, and a letter came from a Maître Charpentier, asking me to consult a colleague of his. And on a Saturday, only the other week, we went over, Catherine and I, into some obscure district off the rue St Denis. Past the Porte St-Martin and the Boulevard Sébastopol was a little lane.
'You know what these streets are, do you, Rama?'
'No,' I said.
"You are so simple and innocent that I am sure you will never have heard about this quarter.' I understood. 'Formerly,' said Catherine, 'the police used to insist on cards; now these ladies have the same profession, only they need not pay any municipal tax.' It was the day after that terrible March storm, you remember. The wind had blown away chimney-pots, wireless wires, laundry hangings, and papers out of offices: even children's toys and old chairs had been thrown into back-yards. It howled through garage doors, through school archways, and sang in the chim- neys. Through windows and chimneys birds had been blown in, leaves, handkerchiefs. In these back-alleys of the Boulevard Sébastopol they had not cleared up everything, 'It smells of spring," said Catherine, as she parked the car. 'Wrap yourself up, Rama. Nothing is so treacherous, we say, as the winds of March."
Yes, spring seemed to be in the air. We wandered to and fro, along the rue St Pierre, looking for the house number. We could not find 17 anywhere, so we looked in at a locksmith's, a round, portly man with an apron, who came out and showed us the narrow entrance to the building. We went up the smelly, dark staircase, and wondered why it was not lit.
Ah! là là,' said someone coming down, 'it's not enough to be blown at hot and cold, now the electricity must also give us the go-by, Funny, funny this country. You pay income tax through the nose, and you don't have light to see beyond it.' He held a match against my face, to convince himself I was another man. When he saw Catherine, he thought the world even funnier. 'You never can say what the world will be,' he concluded at the bottom of the staircase, 'white or dark. What do you say to that, Pierre?'
Higher up, the afternoon sky gave some visibility through the skylight. Maître Sigon was there.
"The lights have all gone,' said his secretary from behind the counter, 'but please sit here, Monsieur et Madame." And she planted a lit candle behind us, 'Monsieur Sigon has a client at the moment. He will see you immediately. We sat for ten miserable minutes, and we did not seem to have anything to say to one another.
"To think that everything must end in darkness, even when spring is in the air,' I said, eventually, and added, 'The law is the death of truth.'
'Don't condemn me so easily,' pleaded Catherine. 'Where would I be if Oncle Charles had not piled up money by counting on the crookedness of mankind? Somehow this gave me an assurance, a feeling of positive goodness-life flowed deeper in the bowels of existence. 'You must have a son this time, and soon,' I said, to assure Catherine of my goodwill.
'Oh, it's enough to have one, for the moment. By the time you come back from India I shall have a second one, I promise.'
The wooden der behind me opened. Maître Sigon, a little round man, with a pince-nez and a black ribbon to hold it, called us in. A white round spot of light-a kerosene lamp, such as we have in India when babies are asleep-lit the green baize of Maître Sigon's desk. He looked up at me, asked my name, father's name, mother's name, date of birth, and assured himself that everything sent by the Notaire from Aix was correct. 'You married Madeleine Roussellin, on February tenth, nineteen- forty-nine at the Mairie of the VIIth Arrondissement. Is that right?' 'Oui, Mattre.'
'Now, you ask for a divorce.'
No, not I, but Madeleine Roussellin does."
'Yes, yes,' he said, looking first at the paper in front of him, and then at me, unconvinced. 'We men are so virtuous, Mon- sieur. It's always the women who cuckold us,' and the storm was on me before I knew. I brushed it away with a broomstick. Catherine looked at me, as if to say, 'What can one do? They are like that, the huissiers of Paris.' But I still felt I could not let such vulgarity pass unnoticed.
So you do not love your wife any more, Monsieur?' con- tinued Maître Sigon.
I never said that, Monsieur."
But you have to say that. That is the law. Do you think they are copains of ours at the bench, and will arrange our affairs as nicely as a baby's nappy, and offer us an aperitif after that?"
I am a foreigner, Maitre,' I reminded him, 'and I do not know French law.
I know French law, Monsieur. Yes, of course, you are a foreigner. You are an Indian.' Saying this, he told himself, that since Indians were inferior, what did it matter when he spoke ill of France or not. You could shout at your wife before your ser- vant at home, but you kissed her hand, when you went out. For Maitre Sigon, India had not yet been free. It was a colony far away, where bananas grew, and men sang funny songs like a mélopée. It was the country of the Buddha: it was the country of Lakmé.
"You are a student,' he said, after a moment's silence'
"Yes, Maitre, so I am.'
'Living in the rue de Vaugirard.'
'Yes, that is so."
'You can sign here. You can say you seek divorce for "in- compatibilité de tempéraments". I hope you get the divorce, Mon- sieur. Oh, French justice is not so bad. It's a little odd, rather like this building is, like this light. This light, now, Monsieur have a good look at it. It has seen three generations of hussiiers, just as this building has seen three generations of Sigons. Once a huissier, always a huissier, is a very good proverb, I tell you.'
"This lady,' I said, as though to give myself some dignity, *this lady, the cousin of my wife, is the daughter of a notaire."
'Ah, I thought so, Mademoiselle, when I saw your face. Ah, I can smell a notaire like I can a good Burgundy. Where would France be without her notaires? We do not make laws like those pompous politicians at the Palais Bourdon; we keep laws functioning, that is all, and you know that is a great deal. We protect the child from the greedy grandmother, we protect the woman from her husband, we protect virtue from being sold like the girls in the opposite street. We make the continuity of France."
'Yes, I know,' I said, very proud. I had heard the same dis- course from Oncle Charles.
'Well-Mademoiselle,' said Maitre Sigon.
'No, Madame,' I corrected.
'Madame, will you kindly sign here, as witness. Funny, what the world is coming to,' he said, looking up at me. 'Formerly, if a wife separated from her husband-for divores in the time of my grandfather was a very difficult business, what with the church and all--I was saying, when you separated, you swore enmity to one another. If you saw her brother, mother, sister, cousin, you looked away, Monsieur, you turned your face away; and if they came too near, you looked up insolently, you insulted them; you swore from the opposite corner of the room. You even sent your - card for a duel. Now, Monsieur, cousins come to sign for one another. Now, the cuckold and the lover both sit at the same table, and play bridge. Oh, Monsieur,' concluded Maitre Sigon, *the world is changing, changing too rapidly for me."
Not having made much impression on us, he rose and said, 'Monsieur, say what you will. You go to fifty other notaries in this city; they will say, the storm has come, it has blown away my car, my house, even my wife, and they will close their offices and go to a cinema. I belong to the older generation: even if there is a storm there is always a light. Is that not so, Henriette?' He turped to his secretary. She was middle-aged all right, and her check overall gave her an air of respectability.
'We work whether others work or not,' she confirmed. 'Maitre Sigon is always here, ill or well. At nine-thirty he is here, before the postman is here. Even before I am here,' said Madame Henriette, smiling. She wanted to please.
'Her aunt,' said Maître Sigon, 'her good aunt, was brought up in our house. We saved her from an orphanage, and that was after the wars of 1870. She served us well at home. And now Madame Henriette is such a faithful secretary. I tell you, if I die she can run this office. That is France, Monsieur, that is France."
The lamps outside were lit, but in the building the elecaric connections had still not been made. The little kerosene burner continued to spread its yellow light on the green tablecloth. Madame Henriette had a pen in her hand as she opened the door.
By the way, Madame,' said Maître Sigon, as if he had sud- denly remembered something. You never told me the name of your excellent father, my colleague. You have signed here, "Catherine Khuschbertieff".'
'My father is Maitre Roussellin, because my cousin is Made- leine Roussellin.'
'Of course, of course,' he said, 'that is true. And he is from
Rouen, did you say, Madame?'
"Yes, Papa's notariat is in Rouen. Rue St-Ouen,'
'My regard to Maître Roussellin, your excellent father, Madame. Remember, France is mainly run by its notaires and huissiers. Our red seal,' he said, unhooking the seal from its peg, this rules France. Au revoir, Madame, au revoir, Monsieur. Madame Henriette will lead you down the staircase. The candle will be of help otherwise you might do the wrong thing with one another, and have to come back again to me. Au revoir, Mon- sieur."
The candle-light lit parts of the staircase here and there. Once at the bottom we shouted, 'Merci. Au revoir, Madame Henriette,' and the light disappeared. The locksmith was still hammering at something he also had a little oil-lamp. The cold wind blew on our faces. Spring was coming. 27.3.54. Yes, I say to myself: "I must leave this world, I must leave, leave this world." But, Lord, where shall I go, where? How can one go anywhere? How can one go from oneself? 'I walk up and down this mansard, and say: "There must be something that exalts and explains why we are here, what is it we seek." And suddenly, as though I've forgotten where I am, I begin to sing out aloud, "Shivoham, Shivoham," as if I were in Benares, on the banks of the Ganges, sitting on Harishchandra Ghat and singing away. In Benares, it may still sound true-but here against the dull sky of Paris, this yellow wallpaper, with its curved and curling clematis, going back and forth, and all about my room... I say, "Clematis is the truth, must be in the truth." I count, one, two, three, simply like that, and count 177 clematis in my room. "IfI add a zero," I say to myself, "it will make 1770 and they would cover ten mansard rooms." I look out and count the number of windows in the Lycée St-Louis. It has eighteen windows: one, two, three, five, eleven, eighteen windows. And I say, "If they had clematis on their walls, how many would there be? Each room there is about three times the width of my room." My arithmetic goes all wrong, for I must subtract one wall out of every three, and that's too complicated. I roil back into my bed.
"Hara-Hara, Shiva-Shiva," I say to myself, as if I were in Benares again, then "Chidananda rupah, Shivoham, Shivoham", I began to clap hands and sing. The Romanian lady next door again knocks to remind me I am in Paris. I go out, with my overcoat on, wan- der round and round the Luxembourg Gardens by the rue d' Assas, feeling that three times round anything you love must give you meaning, must give you peace. Buses still go on the streets, and students are still there chez shining, mirrored Dupont. I wish I could drin's: "It must be wonderful to drink," I say to myself. The students get drunk and are so gay. That Dutch boy, the other day, was quite drunk; he sat in the hotel lounge, with his mouth on one side, and started singing songs. If you don't feel too warm at heart, you can always warm yourself in the Quartier Latin. You never saw more generous girls in the world. Existen- tialism has cleared the libido out of the knots of hair. Wherever you go, girls have rich bosoms, fiery red lips. They don't need cards not because the gendarme does not ask for them, but because girls have grown too pure. Purity is not in the act but in the meaning of the act. Had I been less of a Brahmin, I might have known more of "love".
*29.3.54. I go down the Boulevard St-Michel, stand before the lit fountain and come back. I am sure I am much better. I go round the " 100,000 Chemises" shop, who know their arithmetic. I see that a cravat costs 1,990 francs, the good ones-shoes cost twice as much; the best one four times in the next shop. There is a brawl on the corner of my street, and I look at everyone, thinking as if I am not looking at them, but I am counting them. "Oe, two, three, four, five," I say, and one threatens to beat four and four threaten to beat me. Far is such a spontaneous experience I slink away, I run and run till I reach my hotel. I think it was a political battle of some sort. A group of Moroccan and Indo- Chinese students were having a brawl with some elderly French- man. Then I understood. They thought-the fat, threatening Frenchman thought-that I must be a Tunisian. You must fight for something. You cannot flow like the Rhône, dividing Avignon into the Avignon of the Popes and Petit Avignon. 'I get my key from the concierge and come up to my room. I feel the room to be so spacious, so kind; I could touch the sky with my fingers. You can have 177 clematis in your room and yet touch the sky of Paris. A Brahmin can touch anything, he is so high-the higher the freer. I look at the carefully arranged manuscript of my thesis. It has 278 pages. It has been finished for over a week. Dr Robin Bessaignac said it is very interesting, very very interesting indeed, but blue-pencilled several passages. One in particular, in my preface, made him laugh. "History is not a straight line, it is not even a curved line," I had written. "History is a straight line, turned into a round circle. It has no beginning, it has no end-it is movement without itself moving. History is an act to deny fact. History, truly speaking, is seminal."
"You don't know our Professors," Dr Robin said. "They would hide behind their notes if they saw a girl with too much. rouge on her lips. Besides, my friend, there is an ancient tradition in this country: Beware of too much truth. We French live on heresies. If only poor Abelard had ended with a question mark and not with a 'Scito Teipsum', he might have walked Paris un- castrate, and be canonized a saint by now. You must go to the end of philosophy, go near enough to truth-but you must end with a question mark. The question mark is, I repeat, the sign of French intelligence; it is the tradition of Descartes, that great successor of Abelard. And as for anything imaginative... 'There's a famous story about Sylvain Lévi, the orientalist, you know. He had said, and that was seventy good years ago, some- thing about Kalidasa's plays. His books ended, as all good literature ended in those days, with a noble sentence, rounded like one of Mallarmé's. Would you believe it, the thesis was refused: he had to write it again. I do not want to see your thesis refused. I knew what they will say. "This is supposed to be a thesis on the philosophical origins, mainly oriental, primarily Hindu, of the Cathar philosophy. But it is too poetic. It lacks historical discipline! Get someone-preferably a Professor-to help you to remove everything that does not end in a question. 'Can you find one?' he asked me. Of course I know one. Who could be more helpful to me than good Georges? I often discuss my thesis with him, and I have read him bit of it. He does not say whether it would be suitable or not as a thesis: he is happy at my defence of Catholicism, and finds my logic inescapable. Here and there, however, he has suggested a few corrections. And then, somebody has to translate the whole text into French. I wonder whether Georges would do. Good Georges, of course, agrees. I must give it to him tomorrow.'
2.4.54. I roll and roll in my bed. Not that I am ill; no, I am not so ill. In fact the doctors are very satisfied with the state of my lungs; hardly any complications with my ribs or my chest, they say. I could, in fact, stay in Europe if I cared. But why should I? What is there to do? I think of Saroja. She is not happy, but she is settled. I think of Little Mother going and dipping in the Ganges every morning. And now, this year, with the Kumbha Méla and the sun in Capricorn, she must be very happy. Could I give Little Mother such joy it I were back? What can a poor Professor in Hyderabad do? At best I could take her on a pilgrimage once in two years. There is nobody to go to now: no home, no temple, no city, no climate, no age.
*Kashwam koham kutha dyatha ka më janani ko më tätah? Who are you and whose; whence have you come?
'Wheresoever I am is my country, and I weep into my bed. I am ashamed to say I weep a lot these days. I go to bed reading something, and some thought comes, I know not what-thoughts have no names or have they?-and I lie on my bed and sob. Sometimes singing some chant of Sankara, I burst into sobs. Grandfather Kittanna used to say that sometimes the longing for God becomes so great, so acute, you weep and that weeping Has no name. Do I long for God? God is an object and I cannot long for him. I cannot long for a round, red thing, that one calls God, and he becomes God. It would be like that statue down the road. I asked someone there, "What is this statue, Monsieur?" He was surprised and said, "Why, it's St Michiel!" Since then I have known why this road here is called St Michel and that St Michel kills a dragon. Being a Brahmin I know about Indra and Prajapathi, but not about St Michel or St Denis. I will have to look into the Encyclopédie des religions. And that's not too helpful either. God, in this Encyclopédie, has sixty-two pages, and they do not illuminate my need.' '5-454. No, not a God but a Guru is what I need. 'Oh Lord, My Guru, My Lord," I cried, in the middle of this dreadful winter night. It was last night; the winds of April had arisen, the trees of the Luxembourg were crying till you could hear them like the triple oceans of the Goddess at Cape Comorin. "Lord, Lord My Guru, come to me, tell me; give me thy touch, vouch- safe," I cried, "the vision of Truth. Lord, my Lord."
'I do not know where I went, but I was happy there, for it was free and broad like a sunny day and like a single broad white river it was, I had reached Benares-Benares. I had risen from the Ganges, and saw the laminous world, my home. I saw the silvery boat, and the boatman had a face I knew. I knew His face, as one knows one's face in deep sleep. He called me, and said: "It is so long, so long my son. I have awaited you. Come, we go." I went, and man, I tell you, my brother, my frienti, I will not return. I have gone whence there is no returning. To return you must not be. For if you are, where can you return? Do you, my brother, my friend, need a candle to show the light of the sun? Such a Sun I have seen, it is more splendid than a million suns. It sits on a river bank, it sits as the formless form of Truth; it walks without walking, speaks without talking, moves without gesticulating, shows without naming, reveals what is known. To such a Truth was I taken, and I became its servant, I kissed the perfume of its Holy Feet, and called myself a disciple.
This happened, this happened so long ago-Oh, as long ago as I have known myself be. Ever since being has known itself as being I have Known It. It is the gift that Yagnyavalkya made to Maiteryi, it is the gift Govinda made to Sri Sankara. It is the gift He made to me, My Lord. May I be worthy of the Lord. Lord, My Master! O thou abode of Truth."
I GO SOMETIMES to see Catherine and Georges. While Georges corrects my manuscript, and puts it into the acuity, the brilliance of the French language, I often sit by little Vera, and speak to her my truth. For Vera, with her seven months, can understand more of it than I could ever make Georges accept. Truth is to be recognized when told-as the beauty of a flower is recognized. Truth has such a perfume too. When I go into Vera's room she smiles, and her little eyes know who I am. She sees beyond me.
I am so happy with Vera that even when the maid is there I tell her, 'Go to a cinema, enjoy yourself. I will look after the baby. And sometimes I sent Georges and Catherine away to sec a play or go and hear music. They see that I am really happy, and they let me be with their daughter. And when I am alone I sing to Vera-I sing her Sankara and Bharathrihari, and tell her one day she shall know there is somewhere to go. For now I know the name of Him to whom I have to go, though I have always known Him without knowing His name. So to Travancore I will go, I tell Vera, 'I will go there Vera, and think of you.'
Sometimes so deep is my joy that I dance about the room and sing of the Truth. I show His picture to Vera, for I have a picture now and have bought his books too-and say, 'Look, look, Vela, this is He! Can you see Him? It is He, the Guru, my Lord."
It was Georges, good Georges, who had originally taken me to the rue de Boulainvilliers. There are some Vedantins in Paris, too," he said. Would you like to meet them?' I was happy. I met an Indian who knew me, and knew my family; he talked too much. But the Frenchmen and the Frenchwomen-and one or two English people as well, and an American-they all made a deep impression on me. That had been long before I went down south, soon after leaving London. I had carried His books to the Alps and had read them again and again. They convinced me, but I had to know.
Now, I think I know, but I must go, I must go to Travancore. I have no Benares now, no Ganga, no Jumna; Travancore is my country, Travancore my name. Lord, accept me, vouch that I be where I should. How can I ever, ever tell Georges? Will he understand? Would Madeleine, with her sajras and her chakras understand this simple, this ever-lit Truth? Truth indeed is He, the Guru. No, He is beyond definition. He is and you are not.
Now, when I am singing Jana, now my eyes fill with tears, and I drop them on Vera. 'Vera, do you see?' I say, and cover her cheeks with my tears. I sing to her the Kanarese cradle-song I sang often to Sridhara:
The Swan is swinging the cradle, baby, Saying "I am That', 'That I am', quietly. She swings it beautifully, baby, Abandoning actions and hours.
Georges and Catherine went this evening to see Oberon.
"What gorgeous scenery!' Catherine said. 'And how rich and appreciative the audience. But what was true a hundred years ago is true no more. Kings and queens have to talk differently, be different. The President of the Republic was there, and so was Prince George of Greece. But Paradise, Rama, the Paradise of Oberon...?"
*All you need's a donkey,' said Georges, tired. Come, I will make you some nice warm chocolate. Chocolate or coffee, my children?' said Catherine, very happy. "The children being very wise,' said Georges, 'they will take chocolate.'
'How was Vera?' said Catherine. 'You don't need to go to India for a job, Rama. You look after Vera. Vera loves you: she is so quiet when you are here. And you can write your abstruse theories. I will give you back your small room. And Georges will drink chocolate and translate your clever ideas.'
'I promise to stay if you will have a baby before I go,' I said jokingly.
'Now, now, Rama, you may have more intuition than you think you have.' This from Georges. 'Ah, là là!' said Catherine, 'A Brahmin after all.'
'Do you know what a Brahmin is, Catherine?'
'No, what is it? She came back, having gone half-way to the.. kitchen.
'A Brahmin he who knows Brahman. That is one defini- tion,' I said. There is another, a roughish definition. A Brah min is he who loves a good banquet.'
You certainly do not belong to the second category, poor dear, Rama, what shall we do when you are gone? You have be- come so like one of us. We will be lost'
Georges looked at me. He looked so sad.
'We must have been brothers in a past life,' he said, as though to explain everything. Catherine must have heard it, through the kitchen wall. For she came back and said:
'I must have been your wife. That is why Vera knows you. Marriages are made in Heaven, they say, don't they? Some- times they are made on earth.'
Georges and I went back to the kitchen with her. I said, 'Catherine, I will tell you what: marriages are made in Benares.'
'Georges, let us go to Benares,' she said.
'And what about the dead bodies, and the pyres, and the famous crocodiles that some French author saw with his own four eyes?' I laughed. She had read about the crocodiles in some book and was convinced Benares had only floating dead bodies, beggars, and many cremation fires. She had also heard, seven miles away was Sarnath. That was where the Buddha had turned the Wheel of Law.
'No, let us go to Travancore,' I said.
Now, what is this new place?' protested Catherine.
'I have been telling you and myself a lie, all these years. My real home is in Travancore. Benares is there, and there you have no crocodiles or pyres.
'It's opposite Ceylon,' said Georges, in geographic explanation; like me he was a born professor.
'I will make chocolate for two in Travancore. Travancore, Travancore, there's magic in that name!' said Catherine.
And we went back to the plush chairs. The chocolate was very good.
