Letter from SHARMA PATEL
to GEORGE SHERBAN
Dear Comrade,
I only heard last night that the bearer is going your way, so this last letter (I have been writing to you every spare minute I get, which isn't saying much!) - it has to be short, this letter.
When are you coming? You promised. Luis says you are to come on another all-round trip, India just one of your ports of call. I am waiting - you know how impatiently.
But I have something concrete to put forward. At the next Pan-Europe Conference of the Youth Armies, it is on the cards India will be elected into Convenor's position. This is what everyone is expecting. That will make your Sharma boss of Europe for that year. (Of course I am only joking, as you know!) But I am looking forward to it, apart from the travelling to each of the countries. I talked to Luis about my idea. I asked him to think it over carefully. I told him that if you were prepared to put yourself forward for it, you would very likely represent North Africa. Are you prepared to put yourself forward? You didn't seem wholehearted when we discussed this. You are wrong! It isn't correct to vacillate and hang back when you know you are right for a position! Selfish ambition is one thing. I am not advocating that. I don't think even my worst enemies could accuse me of that. But it is not modesty to refuse to undertake responsibilities you are right for! And you are the right man for the job. And you deserve it. Your style of work and your achievements are well known. And there is your Indian background, which is not unknown! I hear on all sides how highly you are thought of. So, I hope that I will hear from you that you have put yourself forward for the path that now lies open to you. Which brings me to my plan. What I asked Luis was this. It would be a step forward on the right path to link Europe and Africa. At the present these links are intermittent and tenuous. We should correct this. I propose that you, as representative of North Africa (you will, you must agree!), should be elected with me Joint Heads of the Armies for the year. And of course this year might very well become two or even more, it tends to happen! I can see your dear smile! I can hear you pointing out that this plan of mine depends on three unknowns. But I have a hunch. I have a feel for how things are likely to work out. I have been right often enough, admit it! So I am working this end for the success of this plan. We can travel together through Europe and North Africa. I don't have to say what that would mean to me. And to you, I know. Our lives together, our love, will fuse into the great upward march of mankind, which is led by the uncorrupted youth of the world.
Oh I can't wait to see you again! But I have been so busy, all day and half the night as usual, I haven't had time to be sad. I know this is what you would want to hear from me when we meet.
But I do allow myself one little indulgence... I remember... do you remember? - that jewel of a night after the Conference at Simla
...one day nights like that will be the heritage of all mankind, and so I don't feel selfish when I think of this jewel of a night. Oh George, when will I see you again? The bearer will be returning here before going on to Peking and will bring me your letter. Which will agree, I hope and trust, to my proposals.
Your Sharma.
GEORGE SHERBAN to SHARMA PATEL
I have read your letter very carefully. I will see you during my visit to India and I will tell you then why I will not allow myself to be put forward, as you suggest. But Sharma, I did tell you, I explained everything to you.
I have been dreaming. Would you like to hear my dream?
There was a civilisation once - where? - it doesn't matter. The Middle East perhaps, China, India... It lasted a long long time. Thousands of years. We can't think like that now: continuity, cultures not changing very much, generation after generation. It was a civilisation where there were rich and poor, but not great extremes. It was well balanced, too, trade and agriculture, and the use of minerals, all in harmony with each other. People lived a long time, perhaps a thousand years. Perhaps five hundred. But it doesn't matter, a long time. Of course now we despise the past and think that children were mostly born to die because of ignorance. But these people were not ignorant. They knew how not to have too many children and to live at peace with their land, and their neighbours.
Imagine what a marriage might have been then, Sharma. Nothing frantic and desperate, no fear of death as we all have it, making us rush to mate and marry and the having and holding because we know that everything may so suddenly be taken away.
And lifetimes stretching in front of you... a young man may have parents two hundred years old, think of that Sharma, how sensible and experienced they must be... he sees this marriage, and its strength and its sense, and he knows he wants the same. And there is a girl like him. They may have known each other all their lives. Or have heard of each other, for there is plenty of time to hear of this one and that one - to listen to someone growing up nearby, and to wonder, would we be right with each other? But there is no hurry, no rush, no desperation. Behind them stretches their civilisation, and the wise men and the historians and the storytellers tell them of it, and in front of them stretches their world, and will go on and on...
But marriages are made young, of course, for that is the time for marriage. The families make slow and thoughtful approaches to each other. What they are thinking of is how they can carry the best they know into the future of the race, their culture. They see themselves, feel themselves, as the bearers of culture. Yes, they discuss family characteristics - this is a good family, the mother is good and balanced and beautiful enough, and the father is also these things, and his line too. When these young people know these things are being discussed, it is not with a sense of personal affront, which is how we would, now, in these days, experience a discussion about - not our wonderful and precious selves - but our importance as representatives. When they meet, it is without panic and grasping. They talk and they visit and they wait and they get to know each other's families, and all this may take a long time, years even, for there is no hurry. And they know that if they decide not to marry, then in any case they will be friends for so long they cannot see the end of it. Meanwhile they love, of course, and choose how they may live, in this place or that, he will work at this or that, and she too, and all the time their children are implicit in what they say and think and do, for the knowledge of how to keep a strong, continuous healthy civilisation is the deepest thing in them.
Can we even begin to imagine, in our feverishness, our consumption of possibilities, the slow, full texture of their days, their years?
They marry, when the time has come for it. What is he? A merchant perhaps and she will travel with him and work with him, or a farmer? A maker of artefacts, these two, tiles, household vessels, everything satisfying and good in their hands, and to look at. Or they will choose to live in a house near their bakery, or is it a leather goods shop, or is he a carpenter, or does he work with metals. What they do with their hands brings them satisfaction, pleasure, every gesture they make must have use, and necessity. There is no hurry. No fear. Of course people die, but after long lives. Of course there are accidents and even, sometimes wars, but these are skirmishes along the edges of their civilisation, bordering another just as fine and old as their own. There is respect between these two cultures, and often marriage and much trading.