A man we call "Fatty" and his wife have moved into my former guesthouse room. A typical American Jew, vulgar, fat like a circle around the middle, thin legs, wearing shorts (naturally he would), smoking mustard-gas cigars. He is the father of one of the settlers at Ice Cream. The poor daughter has been drugged already one week awaiting the arrival of her parents, has greeted them smiling vacantly. He, the father, has selected the smallest, thinnest, rickshaw driver to pull his huge bulk around Villefranche for a weekly rate. His wife must ride in a second rickshaw. No room with Fatty aboard. As he rides he looks around as if seeking applause. Anyone will tremble when Fatty removes the cigar, fixes him with a squint, and starts to talk. He talks quietly, only shouting when one attempts to reply.

With Fatty at the guesthouse I am happy to be at the hotel, especially as the bill will be settled honestly (by Tom). (I am not fond of deceit but in my life it is often unavoidable for survival reasons.) Tom has carried to my room his sitar, but never stays or practices it. The rickshaw drivers applauded when he appeared with it on the street this morning, as though expecting a concert. To me he looked more like a thief caught by searchlight, desperate, stolen instrument in hand. But the Hindus will applaud nearly anything (only not poor Fatty). I have seen one small boy in Bombay, seated an evening with his father on Marina Drive, applaud the disappearance of the sun over the horizon.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day, tonight a special supper in the guesthouse. Her Ladyship and I are both invited. We are the only outsiders allowed; not even Fatty's daughter can attend. Tom has arranged it. All morning he has been riding around the town buying gifts, taking Deborah with him in the rickshaw. For her kindness in staying with him she has been given many gifts: a handwoven tablecloth set, more hand-made paper, etc. She has had to buy a second traveling bag for all her booty.

At lunch Deborah and Pete sat very far apart, never looking at each other. Tom was nervous, speaking more than anyone. No after-lunch siestas allowed, he said. Deborah must wrap gifts in his room. Pete must help Juney make Father Christmases with apples, carrots, cotton wadding and toothpicks; yes, they may discuss yoga at the same time. The weather, which had gotten quite hot and humid, suddenly made a tropical downpour. Nearly ten days since the official end of the monsoon season. I left the wet patio and went to help Deborah wrap the gifts. She had been making a very slapdash job of it; I added confusion. Tom ran in and out. As the afternoon passed, the breeze was cooled by the dampness.

The afternoon ended. Our work done, Deborah and I returned to the hotel to wash and dress for supper. Tom stopped me. He was already beginning to take apart our packages and do them over again. "You'll keep an eye on things for me?"

How could I pretend not to know what he meant? I nodded. He was paying my rent. Now I knew why. I, Flaminio de Conningsfield, am a paid informer!

Heavy hearted, I walked about my room, took a cold shower. Hot water, brought in a bucket for bathing, is part of the forty-five-rupee rate along with bed tea and afternoon tea. Assuming that my employer has settled on the thirty-rupee rate for me, I order no hot water, no tea.

But now what? Voices in the next room. Someone is inside with Deborah!

I left my room and passed hers, turning my head to look casually over the half-curtain into the lighted chamber. Framed against the mosquito net they were embracing, Peter and she. Almost the same height, he heavier. So passionate, with eyes closed, so they didn't see me. I wondered if it was their first kiss together. Then, pretending I had seen nothing, I knocked loudly at their door like a stormtrooper.

There was a pause, then another, then the door opened. The two were very confused, covered with blushes. Deborah had picked up her camera. "Hi," she said with a funny voice. "Come in."

I told her I had no time. I was looking for Tom.

"He isn't here." She motioned for me to look around. All honesty and innocence. "I was showing Pete my camera."

I happen to know Her Ladyship's camera. It is remarkable for nothing except its cheapness. I asked them if they knew where Tom might be found. Then I told them about my last Christmas, spent in Hong Kong, then the one before that which took place in Bahrein. Peter felt it was time for him to leave. "I'll see you at supper," he told her, his voice thick. "Bye-bye." He looked at me very strangely, eye to eye. How, I asked myself, can she go to this one who is so gross and uncultured? Only for his penis? And how can she know anything about his penis until she has seen it? Or reject mine?

Oh, Your Ladyship, how I would love to punish you (so softly, you would never even feel a hurt) for your behavior in this matter. No one can offend a Schutzstaffeloffizier without suffering consequences.

But again in my room, alone, I feel a humiliated wreck. Is this what I have sunk to, I ask myself? I think of what I have formerly been, a teacher, a professor, so many adults taking from me an inspiring example, if I may boast. And now this — a paid informer!

Dear Deborah, if I still have the right to pronounce your name (are you weeping now? I hear you in the toilet and have turned on the tape recorder, hoping to record whatever comes to pass), what I have done is for your own good. This American with his dull and uniform face is not worthy of your favours. I know that you are suffering very deep inside from some past hurts, which is why you have come here, seeking love and salvation.

Yet you cannot look into my so timid eyes. O, how to convince you that though I am a soldier I am not cold and cruel? How to convince you that my tenderness for you is real, and not because your father is rich? (For all I know he might be poor, but then how do you travel so far — do silly articles pay so much? I doubt it. And you cannot, certainly, pay your way, moment by moment, like I, a cat with two lives who lives constantly in danger.)

We met later on the terrace, waiting for Tom to come and take us to the gala supper next door. The air was sultry. I have never seen Her Ladyship looking so beautiful. She had put on a silk saree that was as if made out of liquid gold. When she moved, gold ran up and down her body. When she was still, her hands in her lap, fires burned on her shoulders, breasts and knees.

The very feminine and dignified dress had transformed her. How calm and gentle she seemed. Her face was tranquil, holding no reproach for me, no reprisals, in spite of my vile action. I knew that I could never tell Tom what I had seen. I thought: this is a woman whom I could marry. No American woman has ever interested me so deeply — luckily her voice was not so hard as most. Only I would need to educate her a little in history and philosophy.

We talked. She told me she had always lived and traveled alone, had never lived with anyone for any length of time. I told her she was too solitary, that it was normal for women to want a husband and children, a home. "You are seeking something but you do not know where to look."

"What about you?" she smiled, touching the leaf of a plant with her finger.

This beautiful young woman. How could I burden her with my own story, my sad tale of exile? No, this was too unusual a moment to waste. Our hero felt that this was a woman one could really live and die for. But it was not his job to die. Now that he had restored his self-respect, he could not again suffer such humiliation.

I was about to reply something diversionary when she looked at her watch. "Eight thirty. Maybe he's waiting for us to come over there."

It seemed reasonable. We started down the stairs. On the landing one of the bearers, carrying a bucket of steaming water, stopped to let us pass. "Hot water, Sahib?" he asked me as I was going by.

First, irritation at his tardiness, for I had bathed an hour ago in cold water. Second, the sudden realization that Tom was paying forty-five rupees for my room. "No, my good man," I told the bearer. I was touched.

The street was full of rickshaw drivers. Seeing us, Green Beret ran up to Deborah. "Sahib no inside." Waving his hands, he indicated that we should return to the hotel. "You wait. Sahib coming."

Rather confused, we returned to the terrace. I felt the drivers had gone too far. Deborah felt they had orders from Tom. Perhaps he had planned a surprise.

A few minutes later Tom came bounding up the stairs. "Sorry to be late. C'mon. We have to hurry."

His long, thin body was dressed in a starched white khurta and white "ducks" of the United States Navy, flaring at the feet. We hastened after him into the street. Then came many rickshaw drivers running to stop us. My heart jumped into my knees. Then we saw Green Beret untying two garlands of yellow flowers. His black hands snapped the strings. Opening the first he held it high toward Tom's head. His hands, I could see, were shaking. Tom put his head through. I could tell he was taken by surprise and very moved. Then Green Beret handed him the second garland and motioned that Tom should put it around Deborah's neck. He did. Then the rickshaw people, grinning broadly, very proud, all stepped back and gently applauded.

With her gold-brown saree now enlivened by the thick wreath of yellow flowers, Her Ladyship was more beautiful than I had ever seen her. Her face was radiant, as if it was the most perfect moment of her life to become thus like a queen bride.

"Thank you," Tom said, very moved. Deborah could almost not speak. They shook Green Beret's hand, for once Tom not giving a tip. "And a very merry Christmas to you all."

Then, having no more time, we fled next door into the guesthouse patio, Tom and Deborah looking at each other with speechless joy like escaped prisoners.

When we entered the dining room, I could not believe my eyes. Almost the entire table was occupied. All the guests were there. More than twenty souls. Candles burned down the long center. The walls were festooned with paper hangings. At every place an apple Father Christmas and a crepe paper popper. The Founder and the Mother looked down from the walls. The sideboard altar was arranged with Tom's whole set of candelabra.

Two places at the head of the table were still unoccupied, then filled by Tom and Deborah like a king and queen. Deborah I knew had thought earlier of wearing nothing special for the supper, now was certainly glad to be wearing the saree. She sat on Tom's right. Flaminio sat on her right, just around the corner of the table. I could not envy Tom because of what I had seen so few hours ago. Peter was at the far end of the table, Evil-eye on his right hand like a penalty. Opposite me, on Tom's left, sat Juney. Next to her Fatty, then Mrs. Fatty. On my right was the Swiss couple looking festive as two mossy stones. Fatty's bead eyes were quite steady on Her Ladyship. Everyone was looking at her, so suddenly changed. She looked at everyone indirectly, as though surrounded by suns.

All present were impressed by the action of the rickshaw drivers which had transformed the two former confused Americans at the head of the table into a sort of royalty. As in a fairy tale, so they found themselves redeemed by sudden beauty and the respectful efforts of hirelings.

"I just know," said Juney, "that my lei's out there in the street waitin' for me. I shoulda gone out, but I was just too darn busy gettin' things ready around here for you others." She looked very downhearted. "Did you happen to see my lei while they were givin' you yours?"

Tom shook his head. "I didn't happen to notice."

"That's just what this dress of mine needs," she sighed. "A touch o' yellah. Now, if I was in Honoluluh...."

"You look lovely just as you are," smiled Deborah. "I never saw you looking so pretty."

Juney was wearing a long white dress embroidered with coloured flowers. "I'm sure all those drivers are waitin' for me to come outside. What do you think, Tom? Think I should go out there and let 'em give me my lei?"

"Why don't you take mine," said Tom gently, but I could see it hurt him to give up the rickshaw drivers' gift. Deborah looked pained, too, but nothing to be done. He took his garland off and hung it around Juney's neck.

"Thanks, Tom. I think I deserve this for all the work I've done for this party."

"I think you do too," he said kindly.

Spots of water, bits of petal and pollen dust had stained Tom's immaculate shirt front. This was seen when the flowers were removed. Now, of course, it was quite clear who should have been placed at the head of the table next to Her Ladyship. Who was he, that well-dressed and unsoiled stranger on the queen's right hand? A gentleman in waiting? Her secret amant? The First Minister of the realm? Perhaps the king's brother. But only look more closely. Is that not the Pretender, Conningsfield, in disguise? And look even more closely. Is the king not really assassinated with a dagger in his back, ready to topple head first into his supper dish?

The turkey course was named "Juney's Triumph." I believe I knew the bird, a small, vicious creature living in the street near the ashram. He would spread his tail feathers and run at me whenever I passed by. But my umbrella could open larger than his tail, he soon learned. Now he or one of his friends was cut in pieces on a dish of rice.

Juney related her struggle. "First I scorched him. Then I boiled him. Boiled him again. Then I baked him, then I set him into the rice and baked the heck out of him some more. How does he taste?"

"Delicious," we murmured.

"A little dry, maybe? A little tough? Be honest. I can take it."

"Not at all." Just barely edible if you took a lot of the rice onto the fork at the same time.

"Well, I wish you could have seen that turkey alive. Then you'd understand what I was up against. But it was worth it. What's Christmas without turkey, I always say."

Now I saw that Peter was gazing the length of the table at Deborah, who was returning his gaze. Tom, who had a more jealous nature than myself, noticed this too and began to get rather excited. He took Her Ladyship's lower jaw in his fingers and twisted her face around. Only her eyes looked still toward Peter. Then she jerked loose, biting Tom's hand. "Stop!"

"What brings you to Villefranche, Deborah?" asked Fatty who had been watching this.

She rubbed her face where the red marks from Tom's fingers still showed. "Huh?" It took her a moment to gather her wits. Also she probably found it difficult to answer Fatty, whom she disliked. The day before she had seen him forcing his skinny driver to pedal against a strong wind along the sea wall. Fatty, meanwhile, sat in the rickshaw smoking his cigar and looking around proudly. Now she looked at him rather cold. "I was brought here by plane," she told him. "And car."

It was like sticking a bull, only he held his violent nature under control. "Have you seen the Mother?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"I did. Last year. You should too, Deborah. It would do you a lotta good. A real lady, the Mother. You could use some of that yourself."

"I'm sure. And by the way, in case you don't happen to know because you yourself don't ride a bike, it's very hard pedaling upwind along the sea wall. Usually one lets the rickshaw drivers take the back streets going toward town."

"You mean yesterday?" He laughed. "Oh, I know it's hard. But I was punishin’ him. Found the fellow dead drunk the night before. Wanted to teach him a lesson before firing him."

"You fired him?"

"Course I did. Teach him a lesson. Won't get drunk next time. Anyway, there won't be any next time, not with him. He's out for good."

I think no one at the table was listening to this conversation but myself. Tom tried to listen, but must talk instead with Juney. Very enlightening, I thought, to hear two Jews with hostile natures turned against each other. Deborah was shaking, pale, to see how gross her Jewish compatriots can be. She looked around, as if for help, but there were no other Jews present except Fatty's wife (no improvement).

Then Deborah turned to me and said very quietly, "He reminds me of that father we were reading about who killed his daughter."

"I heard what you just said," roared Fatty, who must have monster ears for I could hardly hear her myself and was sitting next to her.

Deborah turned absolutely white. The table had suddenly become silent. She took a sip of water.

"I heard what you said," he shouted again. "That fellah in the magazine who shot his kid. I read that too. I suppose you take the side of the kid. I hear you was laughin' while you were readin'."

Deborah was perhaps afraid Fatty would come around the table and beat her with his fists. "Look," she said, "let's not spoil...."

"Yeah. It's Christmas. You shoulda thoughta that before startin' somethin'. Okay, Deborah, we'll leave it for now. Only remember, next time don't be so high and mighty tellin' other people how to run their lives."

The whole table was silent, eating. Tom reached over, hooked Deborah's neck with his fingers, pulled her head close and kissed her cheek. "Cheer up," he told her. "Christmas comes but once a year."

At which she couldn't help laughing, but she was still trembling and her eyes were wet.

Through the rest of the supper Her Ladyship was pale and could hardly wait to get away from the table. Nervously she picked at what appeared to be one string on the flowers overlooked by Green Beret. But when she had finally unwrapped it, against my warning, the bottom fell out of the lei. Now she looked around the room, now at her watch, so human and helpless. My heart went out to her.

After, Tom walked with us back to our hotel, only ten steps, no time to exchange views. Deborah wanted to tell us something. "He's so gross," she said as we looked through the locked iron bars. Tom shouted and a dark figure arose from somewhere and shuffled toward us with his blankets on his shoulders. "How dare he call me by my first name and look at me like that, like I was a traitor or something. I feel absolutely violated."

Tom bent and kissed her forehead. "Tomorrow we'll go to the Christmas party and get Mother's blessings."

"Will she be there?"

"Unlikely, but she'll send them.

"Fatty says she's a real lady."

"She is."

"He says I could use some of that."

"You could. But I love you anyway."

She sniffed, tossing her head as she stepped through the gate. The gateman saluted. Suddenly she turned and ran back to whisper in Tom's ear.

Going up the stairs a moment later she told me we were to hand out the Christmas tips tomorrow. In the dim light she looked at her watch. It was ten thirty. "Goodnight, Flaminio," she said. "Merry Christmas." I felt her face brush first my left cheek, then the right. Then she was looking for her keys, struggling with the padlock, and a moment later had disappeared into her room.

Late into the night I have read and thought. So soon to leave here — what have I accomplished? More weeks of cost-free existence. That is anyway something. Ahead, in Ceylon, risks, dangers. I have enemies there. The way is hard, my battlefield goals still elusive. I imagine life on that southern isle with Deborah as it was in its better moments in Greece with Erde. How much I could offer her.

The immediate problem is to get her to leave with me. In any case she must move out of this hotel the day after Christmas, as I also, and unless she wishes to move back with Tom she will not have a room in all of Villefranche. Peter has four beds in his room, but they are all reserved for the international youths. Tom has spent some minutes talking with Peter so to learn more about him (then defuse him), has found him knowledgeable in spiritual studies and has given him free one large book printed by the ashram and therefore not rare.

Peter is writing a thesis for a doctoral degree. He will teach. His research concerns American literature of the last century, primarily the Transcendentalist, R.W. Emerson. He has loaned me a small booklet of "The Master's" essays and I have been quite touched by the sincerity of ideas that the volume contains.

This is true. My heart also vibrates.

Yes, I could have written that myself, but what can such a sentence mean to this American with his empty face? Yet he has underlined it! It only shows that everyone here is seeking. Tom? Hoping still to seek himself in what Emerson would condemn as "mechanical isolation." He promises to shut himself away in some room in the Tamil quarter, and begin his yoga as soon as Christmas is over. Or as soon as, I say, it snows in Villefranche.

Deborah? She seeks her salvation through safe experiences.

Peter? Through plowing pedantry and chance.

Yes, but that he'll do when the war is over and the conquering hero returns rich and powerful to his native homeland, Europe. His own country is so small, he will have to become a citizen of all Western Europe. In his garden would be France. A so beautiful country, especially the southern part. There, in a quiet valley it was, that Petrarch (Franzesco Petrarca 1304-74), the greatest poet of modern literature, wrote his "Sonnets to Laura," Laura, whom he loved unrequited. It is supposed that she was a married woman with eleven children! He dreamed and wrote of her in the valley of the Vaucluse, not far from Avignon. Blessed be the day, the hour, the minute, the second when I by your two brown eyes was enchanted. He was perhaps the first modern man. Seldom has a man gotten so much honour and wealth. And seldom did a man feel so miserable as Franzesco Petrarca. He has meant very much to me, both in a good way, but also in a bad. He inspired, made it beautiful, but also exalted and exaggerated my unhappy love for Hilda (the First), the little bronze-brown gypsy-girl (Danish) who preferred (how comical) to marry a shop-assistant and still is living in the neighborhood of the historical castle of Fredericksbourg, Hillerod, North Zeeland. The castle on the lake, so idyllic, so breathing with history, so often I have visited. Who would imagine that the last time I saw it was with that Erde who at times, in my body, is still torturing me?

France has many beauties, all agricultural or ancient. The language is easy on the tongue, the country so expensive. One really cannot live there. Germany? Much to admire, but everyone today so fatheaded and bürgerlich. Although I speak fluent German (among the ten languages that I have good knowledge of), I have spent only eight days in that country in my life.

Yes, wealth is the key to the garden of joy. When I, alone, one dark April evening left my country (what a contrast to the magnificent receptions during the height of my power), I swore to return wealthy and also to solve my life's second problem, to find a girl-wife. Later I realized that this was to fight on too large a front. In Rishikesh last year I saw a girl, seventeen years old, niece of a professor friend. She was pretty, perhaps a little too dark in the skin (it is nice if a girl can blush), and was most fascinated by me as I by her. Of course I put it aside as nonsense, although after I had left, her uncle wrote to me and told me that she was much impressed by my personality and had a high opinion concerning my social dealings!!! (Most funny.)

Well, then, where is the truth? What is the interior background for many of my "tricks?" Although often they can be humourous, there is within me a deep-hidden bitterness (I am a realistic idealist) that you are not accepted for what you are, for your naked humanness, but for what you appear to be in your outer appearance. But I am not a pessimist. I have said to myself, "The world not only wants to be betrayed, it demands it, so let us have the best out of it."

For heaven's sake, the important thing is not where you have your knowledge from (i.e. an accredited university) but if you have it. There then is the explanation for my weakness for swindlers and betrayers — perhaps they are more honest than the other ones. Furthermore, I am not a general professor (this one must admit, nicht wahr?). All the same, here in India I am living as a grandseigneur. "The quiet, learned man, the influential professor." It is exciting to be a double player. The day I met the Prime Minister was perhaps the top of my power and "career" in India. All the same, I have a tendency to make a fool of myself, for the same reasons as above. Baton under the right armpit — funny, is it not? Was it not funny that the young, beautiful and married girl in the consulate in Kuwait the first time she saw me with my stick rushed several steps backward as if she thought I would cane her a little? Yes, I have nine sticks. "Der Soldatenkönig" had twelve.

Well, die Fahne hoch, die Reihen fest geschlossen, wir marchieren mit festem, ruhigem Schritt! How much one could learn from Israel: attack, attack, and again attack!

When I came here in March I talked against the death penalty with the Governor of West Bengal. I think I succeeded in convincing. Let us hope I have saved some lives. The main problem is that most Indians think I am twenty-eight to twenty-nine, and not going to be thirty-four (oh, horror). Since I was thirty I have, in sharp contrast to before, done everything to look young and still do have a young face. On my cheeks I have still not very much beard, so I shave them very seldom though I am quite normal and not lacking in hormones.

There is little in these Emerson essays for me. He is aiming buckshot it a flock of birds, hoping that some will hit. Conningsfield has evaded the ambush and flies on, only a feather or two dropping out. Trust thyself. I have always done this, with no one telling me, but it is often difficult.