Chapter 11

Christmas afternoon was warm. I was having siesta in my room after lunch, then suddenly awoke. Someone was tapping on my door. Tom's face looked over the half curtain of the window. He motioned for silence. Stealthily I let him in. He was carrying a book and looked very nervous. He pressed the button, switching on the tape recorder.

"He's in there with Chickie. They're just sitting and talking. They didn't see me look in so they don't know I'm around."

The book, I saw, was the I Ching. Tom sat down at the writing table, opened the book and pulled out a paper with some lines drawn on it. "I just went back and threw and got these hexagrams," he told me. "I'm going to look them up now."

"What was your question?" He hesitated to answer. "You said telling was part of it," I reminded him.

"Should-I-go-in-there-and-break-it-up-and-make-Chickie-mine?"

I offered him a pencil, for he seemed to be searching in his pockets for one. He waved it away. Bringing out a package of cigarettes, rather flat, and some matches, he lighted one.

It was Hexagram 44, KOU, Contact (Sexual and other). Very appropriate. With three moving lines, this hexagram changed into number 58. Tom read, "Contact. The woman is very strong. Do not marry her. I don't want to marry Chickie," Tom said. He read on, but what followed did not seem to tell him anything especially enlightening. "The lines are important," he assured me. "6 at the bottom. He is held back as if with a metal brake. Persistence in the righteous path is auspicious. Advancing is dangerous. However ... however!" he cried, clearing his throat for the revelation to come, "even a small, angry pig will waggle its trotters."

He lowered the book and looked at me in horror. "Waggle its trotters? A small, angry pig? My God! What kind of translation is this?"

Most comical. I had to laugh.

"Okay," he continued, "9 in the third place. The skin having been flayed from his haunches ... Lord! ... he can't walk without staggering. No great danger if he proceeds with caution. Being able to stagger suggests he can still manage to walk without being dragged. Dragged! Jesus. 9 in the sixth place. Contact with horns lowered.... Tom shook his head, sighed, and read on. "Regret but no error. Despised, we must recoup our powers."

He looked up and stared at me dully.

"I would imagine your question has been answered negatively," I said.

"I have to look up Hexagram 58 to know for sure." He flipped the pages of the book. Hexagram 58 was TUI, Joyousness.

He read: "Joyousness. Success! Keeping to the right course will be favorable. Great! This hexagram suggests happiness can be attained by keeping on the righteous path. When led in happiness we forget our troubles; we even forget that we must die." He lowered the book and sighed. "Very happy. I'd forgotten I have to die, until it just reminded me."

"So now what are you going to do?"

"Go-in-there-and-break-it-up-and-make-Chickie-mine."

"But I think the answer to your question is definitely negative. The righteous path would be to abstain from action."

"This morning I threw it and it came out very positive regarding Chickie. I think this time it's just trying to confuse me. You're not supposed to keep asking it almost the same question. I've got to persist in the righteous path, which is to do what it told me to do this morning."

He stood up, then switched off the tape recorder. As soon as he had left the room (by the back door) I switched it on again. The back doors lead from the bathrooms to the narrow corridor used by the servants and are often left unlocked to permit them to enter and clean. The door to Deborah's bathroom must have been thus unlocked, for he was able to enter there. From wariness (soon learned by travelers in Asia where servants and thieves enter at any moment) Deborah had bolted the door between her bed chamber and the bathroom. Tom knocked at this barrier. "Hot water, Memsahib?"

There was a silence. Finally: "Go away." Then shouting started. Tom beat upon the door with his fists. Deborah shouted back. Such exasperation in her voice. Such despair in his.

"Chickie, open this door before I break it down."

"Leave me alone," she shrieked. "Go do your yoga. You have no right!"

"I saw you first." He pounded harder with his fist.

"You'll break the lock. Go away."

Then I heard open the front door to Deborah's room, leading onto the terrace. She and Peter came out. They did not hurry, only I think they had dressed rather fast. She tucked in the back of his shirt. He kissed her on the cheek and she leaned over the railing to watch him go down the stairs. Then she returned to her room.

Tom was running back into my room through the back door, then out the front. Pale he was, without a word to me. Then around and into Deborah's room, slamming the door behind him.

Terrible recriminations started. Several times the word "yoga," very derisive-sounding. There was some struggling, furniture being knocked about. It was rather terrifying. I watched the spools of tape turning very silently, winding up the sound. Most efficient, these machines. One day I must own one for my own use. Then the sounds next door were fainter. Were they resolving their differences? Had he agreed to leave?

I went onto the terrace, was looking out over the rooftops, when a small sound came to my ears. Deborah's door had been bolted from the inside! Back in my room I pressed my ear to the wall joining our rooms. They were laughing together, very low. I pressed my hand against my other ear. Bedframe squeaks — so clear the sound, as if something was bumping up and down inside my head.

How strange. In spite of my many travels, many times living in hotels, I have never heard my neighbors making love. Of course I do not spend my time with my ear against the wall. I am not interested in spying on the lives of others and ask only the same forbearance on their part. But here it was most interesting, actually knowing the two zoo specimens involved and rather much about the situation.

Was he whipping her lightly on her bare posterior? Just this idea made my sexual organ begin to straighten itself out in my pants. (This is a perfectly normal phenomenon which could happen to any man under the same circumstance.) I made a slight adjustment to give it room, opened the buttons and let it stick out into the air.

Soon came the cry, so much like Erde's voice, from the throat, like an animal's. At almost the same moment, another cry. I clapped my hand over my mouth.

Later thinking: three persons could thus be satisfied. I must laugh.

Now the tape was to an end. I took it off the machine. I did not know how to make it replay its tune, so hid it in the false bottom of my suitcase with the watches.

They must have slept. For a long time, no sound. Leaving my room I walked an hour among many strangers on the sea wall. The wind, I noticed on my body, had changed direction, was blowing from the sea. I looked to the weather arrow on the lighthouse. Yes, an east wind. Closing my eyes, I thought of home. If only, I was thinking, I could become a very small, light thing, a feather, and be borne by this wind across lands and seas to my own home country. Christmas day at that hour, my family would still be at the table. Would they remember Flaminio, their exile son? Would they ask each other what has become of him? Where is he passing now his fourth (!) Christmas away from home?

Well, what would they say to know that he is alone and rather sad today. His military tactics have led him only onward, deeper, with no sign of victory on the horizon. Tomorrow he must leave hotel and friends (luckily he has managed to sell some contraband and thus has money in his pocket) and journey alone southward to that dangerous country inhabited by thieves and criminals. His life will be in danger from the moment he sets foot there. One cannot get the better of so many scoundrels, as he has done, without causing jealous rivalries.

So many persons were walking along the promenade. Certainly some were going to the Christmas party given by the ashram, to receive there the Mother's gifts. I recognized the group of Americans from Ice Cream, still very gay and colourful, only a little wrinkled now in their hand-woven clothes.

I followed them at a short distance and soon found myself at the party. I was glad I had dressed in my "uniform" for I had no identification proving I was a guest of the ashram. In fact, I no longer was. But because of my important appearance, they let me in right away. Each ashramite and each guesthouse resident was entitled to receive a gift blessed by the Mother. Naturally the crowd was large.

Under a hangar that was open all down one side stood an enormous Christmas tree. Decorations, coloured lights, the usual. But something was there as I have never seen it before. The whole arena glowed and throbbed with light and colour and a joyful spirit. Thousands waited in a thick queue for many hours to pass into that heart of brightness and receive their gift.

I could have pretended, rapped my way into the queue like an important person in a hurry (as I do when buying train tickets, etc., in underdeveloped countries), but I went first into the hangar to see the gifts. A balloon for each. And then a transparent bag of cheap plastic baby toys! For each person, all adults, the same. And their faces as if the bounteous Mother had given each a diamond.

No, thank you. I could not abuse my authority to receive such a gift. Such items in the suitcase will only inflame customs inspectors. Such provocation I dare not make.

And then I saw, standing in a corner by the tree, a tall, slim figure dressed in white. Tom. He was staring into the soft lights, his eyes wide and unblinking. Walking up to him I put one hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at me, smiling his extraordinary ashram smile, so slow and intense, so false-seeming, but did not speak.

I asked him if Deborah was about. He shook his head, closing his eyes. "No," he breathed.

"Where is she then?"

"Went to see Mother."

"Ah."

I thanked him. Seldom have I seen a person looking so deeply aware of his blessings. Withdrawn and silent, like Flaminio after those two times with Erde, even in the midst of this throng.

Someone from the guesthouse, seeing me empty-handed, gave me the red balloon he had received, a kind gesture, so rare in this place. Passing out through the gates into the street, pressed by filthy begging children, I handed one the gas-filled balloon. His face radiant, he took it in both hands. The rest of the children forgot me and my pockets and crowded around him overcome with awe and envy. Did they think it was a leg of mutton?

Juney and Evil-eye were just arriving. Juney kissed me on both cheeks. A strange sensation. Her cheeks are so powdered, at the same time covered with bristles like a boar. Evil-eye, blushing, laughing and frowning, turned away. Bent as she was she could not reach so high, and who would stoop? The two women then disappeared among the crowd going through the gate. I will probably never see either of them again.

Walking back along the sea wall I thought again of Tom and Deborah. He has won her, and thus has sealed her fate. Tomorrow morning Conningsfield will leave alone, helpless now to help her find salvation.

Tom's personal fears have not come to pass. His union with Deborah has not resulted in the severe withdrawal from life or the nervous depression that he had feared. He has been deeply affected by the experience, but no more than I or any other sensitive soul.

And Deborah has finally gone to see the Mother. She said that this is all she has been waiting for to leave this place. But now that she has found happiness with Tom, she will not leave so soon.

Footsteps on the terrace. Deborah is back from her visit. She has gone into her room. I hear the toilet flush. Then silence. She is alone with her thoughts about Tom and the Mother. O, for an infinitely sensitive tape-recording machine that could record what is going on in her mind!

Later. At seven Tom arrived but she did not come out, nor did he go into her room. They spoke briefly through the door. At seven thirty I knocked on her door to tell her supper was served downstairs. I had to wait almost a minute before she replied. Finally, "Flaminio?"

How sweet my name on her lips, even though her voice was sounding very strange. Perhaps she was crying. But why? "Yes," I replied. Again a very long pause.

"I'm not eating supper, thanks anyway."

I told her I was leaving for the south early in the morning. She said she would see me before I left and wished me a good night. I went down to the table. It was perhaps, as usual, an excellent repas, but I did not taste any of it. My thoughts were elsewhere.

Dear Deborah,

If I do not see you, just a few lines.

I shall always be grateful that I met you. Though I absolutely had it more in my mouth, I think I have been cured of talking about — forgive me — American women and Jews. I can only feel so ashamed. This is after all one of the encouraging things with us human beings, that talking together can change so many things. I know from when I was very young that you in that way can feel a deep sympathy even for people you before disagreed with. I excuse that I talked rather much concerning myself, though in that way I learned much about you.

You understand, I am in a rather bad situation, knowing very little what the future will bring (I have rather few rupees), fearing to go over to Ceylon, longing after home and knowing, that had it not been such a little country with a narrow horizon, my possibilities had been quite otherwise.

And to live as a poor refugee in an ashram, I would not. Or to return home without money, where it is difficult — in spite of my knowledge — to get employment, that would be horrible.

So forgive that I have felt a little depressed and afraid. Usually I am not so. I also thank you for your sympathy in listening to me and giving me a little opportunity of learning somewhat concerning you. I only hope that your ideals of being independent will harmonize with being really happy. I really wish you and Tom all the absolute best.

Flaminio

P.S. And please understand that though I like to look at life as a play, I am not in my interior one day Frederick the Great, another day Napoleon, etc.

 

I am not ashamed to admit that I before going to Ceylon knelt down in prayer and asked the Almighty to help me, not for myself but for the sake of my poor family, and to have compassion for my poor family, with tears in my eyes.

 

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