‘Ah, the maharaja,’ she said. ‘You are always a pasha.’
I got into the compartment. In honour of my departure Madeleine had put on the yellow Aurangabad limru jacket, that I had brought her from India. Her face was paler against that yellow, but how kind, how true she looked, did my Madeleine, as the train took me away.
Devi, devi, ayam paçcimas te Rāmaçirasā pādapankajasparçah.
Goddess, here for the last time
Does the head of Rama touch the lotus of your feet.
As the train pulled itself northward, and we passed through Eyguières, Tarascon, Avignon, Orange, there was much spring in the air — though it was only mid — February — and I thought of Savithri. There had been several letters from her — she was now in Assam, and her letters spoke of the rain, and the Bhutiya Nagas and the coffee plantations: ‘Oh, it’s so sad! It rains and rains, as though the earth never had enough water to seep. I hold receptions, and our young and new republic is growing strong. Ministers, Secretaries of State, come and go, and I think, what is this India we are building? Oh, Rama, it makes me sad, sad! Some want it to become like our neighbour China, and others like their foster-mother white England. And nobody wants India to be India. And Nehru is the Hamlet, who knows his madness is intelligent, while others only see ghosts. Ophelia, of course, is dead and buried. Pratap had a fall playing polo in Shillong. Write to me. S.’ I read it over and over again, and I understood every word of it, every space and contour of her alphabet. With Madeleine everything was explanation. With Savithri it was recognition.
Not Nehru but I was the Hamlet. My madness was not even intelligent. I could have wept into my hands. Instead, I looked at the lovely manor-houses, little archways of sudden curve and comprehension, beneath which cart-horses dragged hay or manure, while the hens and ducks flew all over the courtyard. I remembered a French poet I had met in a Parisian salon, who had said:
‘The best métier for a writer, sir, is to be a level-crossing keeper with squealing children. You only have to show the red and green signals, and that only when the bell rings; then you stand like a deserter before a court-martial, while the children cry from the barrier, making faces, showing fists, and sometimes the petit monsieur underneath their pants. It’s such fun. You go in the afternoon to the nearest farm, to get milk and sausages, have a brief interlude with the Polish maids — there be many in the French countryside — and go back home to write poetry. There is the ideal life for the modern poet. You must naturally have a fat wife, quarrelling but not too quarrelsome, who does not understand a word of what you write. But in bed she’s warm and she will bear the necessary number of children. You have thus three jobs; writing poetry at leisure, letting down the bar when the train bell goes ting-tong, and manufacturing the requisite number of children for the State to feed all of us on and well. Then you could write like Baudelaire.’
I thought of this middle-aged poet, fervent with poetry in his eyes, but weak with insulin in his system. He was to die very soon, and without his Polonaise or his job.
Catherine was there at the station, and Georges, though I had begged them not to come. ‘Rama is not my father’s client, is he? And yet I go often and fetch Father’s clients on some excuse or the other. Besides we have a car.’ So they took me straight to their flat in the Rue Michel-Ange, though I had asked them to reserve a room in the Quartier Latin.
‘You will be far away from the Sorbonne here,’ apologized Catherine, ‘but I am the chauffeur de la maison. I enjoy going about in Paris. The Parisian is such an intelligent animal — it’s a joy to watch him.’
The apartment on the rue Michel-Ange was a large, oldfashioned, rambling egregious thing, with cupboards everywhere, large corridors, and smelly corners. My own room was a small one — next to the kitchen:
‘Like this you will be warm, and as long as you are here we promise not to cook meat. We can always go to a restaurant. And in the morning as we know you rise early and have your Brahminic bath, here is the coffee and here the milk, and you make yourself perfectly at home.’
Georges had grown quiet, distant. His eyes were no more scintillating with vitality, but showed maturity, simplicity, and aloofness.
‘Well, mon vieux,’ he said, ‘Paris is not Aix. There are too many things to do. The student in Paris does less work — he has too many distractions — but he understands things much more quickly. To think that at seventeen they are so clever makes one mad. This generation which has grown up from childhood to youth during the war years is exceptionally brilliant. Perhaps wars are not so bad after all.’
Dinner was laid on the table. I found Catherine looking splendid — I was envious that marriage could bring so much fulfilment to anyone. She was gay, and talked of everything with assurance. Oncle Charles was getting old after alclass="underline" he did not have the same strength he used to, and his phlebitis was worrying him. He might soon have to go to Luxeuil. Aunt Zoubie’s stroke was not serious, but she would never be the same again. She had just been to her first husband’s sister, Diane, who was married to a big businessman in Brussels, and had a chateau in Normandy. The sea air, and the atmosphere of receptions, yachting, and so on seemed bound to do her good. But she returned more tired than ever. When one grows old, even one’s joy seems to diminish.
‘One day, ma petite, I tell myself,’ said Catherine, ‘you too will grow old. Meanwhile, let us be young, don’t you think so, Georges?’
‘I have news to give you,’ said Georges, pursuing his own thoughts, and playing with a knife on the table. He was silent for a brief moment, looked at Catherine with adoration, and announced: ‘Catherine will have a baby in five or six months. You are the first person to know it, Rama.’
To this day I cannot tell you why, but I felt somewhere I had been washed clean and whole by the Ganges, dipped again and again and made shining with Sravan Saturday sun. I must have looked very moved, for Catherine put the soup in front of me, touched my head as Saroja might have, and said:
‘You will look after him, when he grows up, and give him all your wisdom, won’t you?’
We must have eaten our soup in silence for a very long time, as the first question after that came not from Catherine but from Georges.
‘How is Mado?’
‘She’s more of an Indian than me. She already knows more about Buddhism than I do.’
‘I tell you, Catherine, you must learn Russian. You can never understand me without knowing the language of my forefathers. It is in Russian, I have no doubt whatsoever, my most secret thoughts are made!’
‘You want to have three children, and you want to have a nice home. And you want me to help you in your work. Oh, là là!’ said Catherine. ‘Men will never be satisfied with women.’
‘To say that before Rama!’
‘But Rama is not, is not—’ Catherine was trying to find the right expression.
‘—a man,’ whispered Georges, and made us all laugh.
‘No, I mean he is not a man-man. He is an Indian,’ she finished, convinced she had defined me.
It must have been past one o’clock in the morning when we all went to bed. Catherine saw me off at the door, and kissed me on the cheeks.
‘You are like a prayer — that is what I wanted to say. A prayer, I repeat. You have grown so old — I mean ancient, ancient, Rama,’ she added, and heaved a large and affectionate sigh. I went to sleep, and for the first time slept very well. I had no dreams. I woke and thought of Madeleine, and knew she must have slept very well too. Pity she had to make her own coffee in the morning, I thought; but I remembered it was a Thursday and she did not work. So I slept an hour more, and woke to Catherine grinding coffee-beans in the kitchen.