Lola is told that Buddhist Wisdom Books is out of print so she borrows the library copy that Mick offers. She buys The Raga Guide (which includes four CDs), and a boxed set of five All India Radio Archival Release CDs of the late Ustad Allauddin Khan Sahib on the sarod.
‘That’s a lot of sarod,’ says Mick.
‘I need a lot,’ says Lola. She says good-night to Mick, wheels Noah home, changes him, orders in blinis from Diamond Heart Kosher Takeaway, and hooks herself up to her personal CD player and Disc One of The Raga Guide. Abhogi is the first raga, suitable for early night (21:00 to 00:00).
46 Making it Dark
December 1997. Lola dreams that she’s standing on the Embankment, looking up at the Albert Bridge. She takes aim with the sarod and begins to shoot out the lights.
‘You’re making it dark,’ says a man’s voice behind her.
‘They can always get more,’ says Lola.
47 Form and Emptiness
December 1997. At 02:00 Noah’s lusty demand for room service wakes Lola and she gives him the breast. As always she smiles in pleased astonishment at this complete small person who has come out of her. Feeding him is her delight. His satisfaction makes her proud. Still wakeful when he’s replete, she makes herself a cup of rosehip tea and picks up Buddhist Wisdom Books. The much-used copy falls open at The Heart Sutra, page 81. Drawn to the lines in bold type, she reads:
Here, O Sariputra. Form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
Lola feels that she has been entered by these words that she cannot take in. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘maybe understanding is non-understanding and the very non-understanding is understanding, right?’ She feels the unknown meaning of the words opening in her like a lotus blossom. She’s never seen a lotus blossom but her mind gives her a convincing image.
The unknown meaning feels pretty good but Lola would actually like to know it if possible so she makes an effort. Noah is beautifully formed. Is that emptiness? ‘Do me a favour!’ she says. Max’s love for her had form that turned out to be empty. The emptiness had the form of an affair with Lula Mae who was very well formed. The girl from Texas might have been empty to begin with but Max put a bun in her oven and her form got bulgy. Lola’s form also got bulgy from Max’s emptiness. At this point Lola finds her eyes closing but she flips the pages back towards the beginning where her eye lights on a single line of bold type:
Mindfully fixing his attention in front of him.
She likes the sound of that. Conze’s explanation follows in ordinary type, beginning with:
Preparatory to entering into a trance, the Buddha fixes his attention on the breath which is in front of him.
‘Interesting!’ says Lola. ‘Of course that’s nothing for non-Buddhas to try at home.’ Nevertheless, she mindfully fixes her attention on the breath in front of her and breathes it in. Now the scene before her eyes, the interior of her dome, begins to curl at the edges. Like a photograph held over a flame. What’s happening?
This: a dwarf black as ebony with a long body, very short arms and legs, large head, big ugly baby-face. Looks like something that goes on all fours. Apasmara Purusha, demon of Forgetfulness. Lola gasps, slaps herself in the face. Apasmara’s gone. Did she imagine him? Or did she only imagine that she imagined him? She puts on her headphones and listens to the raga Adana, depicted in a ragamala from Mewar (Plate 1 in The Raga Guide) as an ascetic seated on a tiger skin, sometimes identified as Kama, the god of love. Appropriate for late night (00:00 to 03:00).
48 Not So Fast
January 1998. Christmas and New Year have come and gone without Lola’s participation in any festivities outside her dome. People were singing and snogging and throwing up all around Diamond Heart but she confined herself to a private two-person celebration in which she drank a couple of glasses of champagne by way of bringing in the New Year with Noah. ‘Rainbows!’ was her toast. He smiled, possibly anticipating some jollification in his milk.
In the fortnight since her first lesson Lola has been thinking constantly of the sarod. That fretless fingerboard is always in her mind. Every night, before or after other dreams, she sees in dreams her hands on the instrument, hears music she cannot remember. Now she sits crosslegged in the studio holding the sarod and facing Indira.
‘Shisyia,’ says Indira, ‘let me hear the scale please.’
Lola sees her left hand on the fingerboard, her right hand holding the plectrum. ‘Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni,’ she sings as the sarod goes up the scale.
‘Stop,’ says Indira before Lola can come down the scale. Lola waits in silence to be told what she’s done wrong. ‘This instrument in your hands is not a machine-gun,’ says Indira. ‘You are firing off the notes like bullets and your singing is without heart. Even the smallest act, even the tuning of the sarod, must be done in the proper spirit of devotion. Let yourself always be the true vessel for the music that comes through you. Move your mind away from all bad thoughts, let it be clear and peaceful. The scale again, please. Not so fast this time. Listen to the sounds that are coming from you.’
Lola tries to clear her mind. She can’t do it. Her mind is a kaleidoscope of sounds and images. She tries to bypass these as she goes up the scale again.
‘What I hear is tension,’ says Indira. ‘Put down the sarod. For the rest of this lesson we’ll do breathing exercises.’
49 Frog Hollow Road
January 1998. Max writes:
CHARLOTTE PRICKLES ON FROG HOLLOW ROAD
Cars went very fast on Frog Hollow Road. Many hedgehogs never reached the other side. Charlotte Prickles put up a sign that said HEDGEHOG CROSSING — SLOW DOWN. But it was a very small sign and it was written in Hedgehog. Even if they saw it, drivers could not read it.
‘Are you sitting comfortably?’ says Max’s mind.
‘No,’ says Max.
‘That’s not a very cosy opening,’ says his mind. ‘Could do better?’
‘OK,’ says Max. He starts again:
The big hand of the clock is at twelve.
The little hand is at three.
It is three o’clock in the afternoon.
It is bedtime at the Frog Hollow Orphanage.
Charlotte Prickles reads the little hedgehogs a bedtime story. She reads The Hog in the Bog. Then all the little hedgehogs kneel by their beds and say their prayers. They pray that they will reach the other side of the road when they go out this evening.