Three
Is it possible to bring up the word “Mystery” yet? Or perhaps as of now it can only be thought of? For our three characters (three? for the time being)are not seeking mystery; the relative stability of their personalities, the reasonable rationality of their thinking, has set before them a well-lit goal and a clear road to reach it. And if they only remain free of the tyranny of the imagination, of its arbitrariness, they will arrive by their own powers at the simple heart of the matter and return safely to their homes, after parting from each other without acrimony or pain.
For what will they gain from a mystery that leads nowhere? And this young doctor, a rather reflective and solitary hero, abruptly cutoffthree days agofrom ProfessorHishin’s surgical department, which has filled his life for the past year and on which he pinned his hopes for the future, is now, owing to the sudden trip to India, left without even the possibility of any other hope to cling to. He finishes shaving, washes his face, and begins packing in a mood of sullen resentment. But before he finally parts from the dim room where the colorful silk curtains are still drawn and prepares himself for a dayof intensive sightseeing — so that he will not be shamed by friends and acquaintances at home for having traveled all the way to New Delhi and failed to see the things you have to see there — he goesto check that the door is locked, quickly takes off all his clothes and lies down naked on the bed, and masturbates heavily and without recourse to fantasy, in order to feel freer and lighter for the long journey ahead, since he knows that the next bed offered him by his purposivecompanions will be very far away.
But the young doctor had no hidden desire to imagine this bed as in any sense mysterious, even though as he emerged from the hotel, erect and slightly dizzy, straight into the heart of the rosy Indian light floating over the streets stinking with stunning, colorful humanity, a twinge of anxiety entered his soul, whereas the day before, in these very same streets, even in the darkness of night, he had felt quite relaxed. Because the English movie in which he imagined that he was taking part in order to protect himself had completely vanished during the night, and now he was exposed without any barriers to the alien and powerful reality. And this anxiety was so new and sudden to the doctor that he stopped the first available rickshaw, even though it was drawn by a bicycle and not a motorcycle, and threw himself onto the soft seat, and said, Take me first to Humayun’s Tomb. And the rider-driver, a serious Indian of about fifty who wore dark glasses and spoke better English than his passenger, turned out to be an excellent tour guide and spent the rest of the day guiding the young tourist intelligently and efficiently about the city, so that he would see not only the sights the guidebooks defined as not to be missed but also those listed as optional Thus, after they had visited Humayun’s Tomb, the Qutab Minar complex, and even the National Museum, and after the guide had noted that his tourist was not a dawdler but looked quickly and walked briskly, he suggested that the tourist pay a visit, perhaps in his capacity as a doctor, to a unique site — a hospital for birds, not far from the Red Fort. There, on the second floor, in a dimly lit room, opposite stinking cages in which lay sick and wounded birds — some of them with their legs in splints, among them crushed and mangy birds of prey who would suddenly shriek horribly — the doctor’s anxiety deepened, until his soul trembled and he asked to leave. “What a crazy idea,”he argued outside, but when he saw his guide’s disappointment, he corrected himself and said, “Maybe the idea of a birds’ hospital is original, but shouldn’t human suffering come first?”
And then the guide removed his dark glasses, revealing slightly bloodshot eyes, and spoke of the reincarnation of souls, and the doctor secretly clenched his fists and bowed his head in silence, and after the guide concluded, he paid him the exact sum agreed on between them and sent him away without a tip, and instead of going down to the river again to see it in daylight, as he had planned, he turned slowly, feeling rather depressed, in the directionof the hotel. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and the softness of the fading light was suffused with unfamiliar scents. By now he was already in possession of a map of Delhi, and he could find his way without having to ask anyone directions. He sat down in a restaurant and looked at the throng streaming past, and to his astonishment, among the many tourists hesuddenlyrecognized Lazar and his wife, who was still wrapped in the morning’s Indian scarf, walking past him at a distance of a few paces away, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and vanishing into a shop that sold textiles and rugs. How strange, he thought, to bump into them of all people in a city of millions, in this little alley of all places. How strange, he repeated to himself, quickly gulping down his tea, waiting for the moment when they would emerge and he would go up to them to dispel his gloom with her smile, and to compare what they had managed to see today with what he had seen, and to find out if there was some additional sightseeing obligation that he might fulfill in his last hours in Delhi. But they didn’t come out of the shop. The cup stood empty before him, he had already paid the waiter, and he smiled to himself at the insatiable lust for shopping displayed by this fat middle-aged couple. In the end he went to look for them in the shop. But they weren’t there, even though the shop was not a large one and there did not appear to be any other way out. Here was a riddle: suddenly they appear and then they disappearagain? This story is beginning to get mysterious, he whisperedto himself, not yet pronouncing the word itself but only its adjective.