‘I am looking for someone,’ I said. ‘His name is Xavier Janata Pinto, he’s been missing almost a year. The last I heard of him he was in Bombay, but I have good reason to believe that he may have been in contact with the Theosophical Society, and that is what brings me here.’
‘Would it be indiscreet to ask you what reasons you have for believing this?’ my host asked.
A waiter came in with a tray and we served ourselves sparingly: I out of politeness, he no doubt out of habit.
‘I’d like to know if he was a member of the Theosophical Society,’ I said.
My host looked at me hard. ‘He was not,’ he stated softly.
‘But he was corresponding with you,’ I said.
‘He may have been,’ he said, ‘but in that case it would be a private correspondence and confidential.’
We began to eat vegetable rissoles with some totally tasteless rice. The waiter stood to one side, the tray in his hands. At a nod from my host he quietly disappeared.
‘We do have files, but they are reserved for our members. However, these files do not include private correspondence,’ he explained.
I nodded in silence, because I realised that he was manipulating the conversation as he chose and it was no good going on with requests that were too direct and explicit.
‘Are you familiar with India?’ he asked a moment later.
‘No,’ I answered, ‘this is the first time I’ve been here. I still haven’t really taken in where I am.’
‘I wasn’t referring so much to the geography,’ he explained. ‘I meant the culture. What books have you read?’
‘Very few,’ I answered. ‘At the moment I’m reading one called A Travel Survival Kit. It’s turning out to be quite useful.’
‘Very amusing,’ he said icily. ‘And nothing else?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘a few things, but I don’t remember them very well. I must confess to having come unprepared. The only thing I remember fairly well is a book by Schlegel, but not the famous one, his brother I think; it was called: On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians.’
He thought a moment and said: ‘It must be an old book.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘published in 1808.’
‘The Germans were very much attracted by our culture. They have often formulated interesting opinions about India, don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘I’m not in a position to say with any confidence.’
‘What do you think of Hesse, for example?’
‘Hesse was Swiss,’ I said.
‘No, no,’ my host corrected, ‘he was German; he only took Swiss citizenship in 1921.’
‘But he died Swiss,’ I insisted.
‘You haven’t told me what you think of him yet,’ chided my host in a soft voice.
For the first time I sensed a strong feeling of irritation growing inside me. That heavy, dark, close room with its bronze busts along the walls and glass-covered bookcases; that pedantic, presumptuous Indian, manipulating the conversation as he chose; his manner, somewhere between the condescending and the crafty: all this was making me uneasy and that uneasiness was rapidly turning into anger, I could feel it. I had come here for quite other reasons and he had coolly ignored them, indifferent to the urgency which he must have appreciated from my phone calls and my note. And he was subjecting me to idiotic questions about Hermann Hesse. I felt I was being taken for a ride.
‘Are you familiar with rosolio?’ I asked him. ‘Have you ever tried it?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said, ‘what is it?’
‘It’s an Italian liqueur, it’s rare now. They drank it in the bourgeois salons of the nineteenth century — a sweet, sticky liqueur. Hermann Hesse makes me think of rosolio. When I get back to Italy I’ll send you a bottle, if it’s still to be found, that is.’
He looked at me, uncertain as to whether this was ingenuousness or insolence. Naturally it was insolence: that was not what I thought of Hesse.
‘I don’t think I’d like it,’ he said drily. ‘I don’t drink, and what’s more I detest sweet things.’ He folded his napkin and said: ‘Shall we make ourselves comfortable for tea?’
We moved to the armchairs near the bookcase and the servant came in with a tray as if he’d been waiting behind the curtain. ‘Sugar?’ my host asked, pouring tea into my cup.
‘No, thanks,’ I answered, ‘I don’t like sweet things either.’
There followed a long and embarrassing silence. My host sat with his eyes closed, quite still; for a moment I thought he might have dozed off. I tried to work out his age, without success. He had an old but very smooth face. I noticed that he wore lace-up sandals on bare feet.
‘Are you a gnostic?’ he asked suddenly, still keeping his eyes closed.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. And then added: ‘No, I’m not, just a little curious.’
He opened his eyes and gave me a sly or ironic look: ‘And how far has your curiosity taken you?’
‘Swedenborg,’ I said, ‘Schelling, Annie Besant: something of everybody.’ He seemed interested and I explained: ‘I came to some of them in roundabout ways, Annie Besant, for example. She was translated by Fernando Pessoa, a great Portuguese poet. He died in obscurity in 1935.’
‘Pessoa,’ he said, ‘of course.’
‘You know him?’ I asked.
‘A little,’ he said. ‘The way you know the others.’
‘Pessoa said he was a gnostic,’ I said. ‘He was a Rosicrucian. He wrote a series of esoteric poems called Passos da Cruz.’
‘I’ve never read them,’ said my host, ‘but I know something of his life.’
‘Do you know what his last words were?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘What were they?’
‘Give me my glasses,’ I said. ‘He was very shortsighted and he wanted to enter the other world with his glasses on.’
My host smiled and said nothing.
‘A few minutes before that he wrote a note in English: he often used English in his personal notes — it was his second language — he had grown up in South Africa. I managed to photocopy that note; the writing was very uncertain of course. Pessoa was in agony, but it is legible. You want me to tell you what it said?’
My host moved his head back and forth, as Indians do when they nod.
‘I know not what tomorrow will bring.’
‘What strange English,’ he said.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘what strange English.’
My host got up slowly, he gestured to me to stay where I was and crossed the room. ‘Please excuse me a minute,’ he said, going out of the door at the other end of the room. ‘Do make yourself comfortable.’
I sat in my armchair and looked at the ceiling. It must have been very late already, but my watch had stopped. The silence was total. I thought I heard the ticking of a clock in another room, but perhaps it was something wooden creaking, or my imagination. The servant came in without saying a word and took away the tray. I began to feel rather uneasy again, and this together with my tiredness generated a sense of discomfort, a kind of suffering almost. Finally my host came back and, before sitting down, handed me a small yellow envelope. I immediately recognised Xavier’s handwriting. I opened the envelope and read the following note: Dear Master and Friend, the circumstances of my life are not such as to permit me to come back and walk along the banks of the Adyar. I have become a night bird and I prefer to think that my destiny wanted it this way. Remember me as you knew me. Your X. The note was dated: Calangute, Goa, September 23rd.