One of the male servers has a BlackBerry. I was pretty mad when I saw it. Ralph. He’s German. Servers get to be around members of the opposite sex when they’re cooking. There’s only one kitchen and we cook the same stuff for everyone, men and women, new students and old, though there are some things old students are supposed to renounce, of course, like cakes and afternoon fruit. I came in a few minutes early for the breakfast shift and Ralph was sitting on one of the counters bent over the little screen. Ralph is proud of being a server. His cute face goes smooth with devotion. He likes to think of the good he is doing. Without us the meditators wouldn’t have the freedom to live in silence, they wouldn’t be able to offload their bad karma and sankharas and start purifying themselves. Well, first he tried to slip the thing in his apron pocket, then when he saw I’d seen what he was up to, he asked if I’d like to check my email. He wanted to make me a party to the crime. I nearly reported him. Maybe I should have. ‘That’s really against the spirit of the Dasgupta,’ I said. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. What’s the point of us creating this pure atmosphere here if you’re polluting it looking at porn on your BlackBerry?’
That upset him. It was pretty funny. How could I think he was looking at porn? he said. He has a strong German accent. ‘Why do you zink zat?’ I was struggling to keep a straight face. ‘All men look at porn,’ I told him. Which is the truest thing on earth. ‘Why did you try to hide it otherwise?’
But if I had reported Ralph, to the Harpers, or Mi Nu, they would have been sterner with me for telling tales than with him about his BlackBerry. At the Dasgupta each person must obey the rules because they want to. So long as they’re not disturbing someone’s meditation, rule breakers don’t need to be reprimanded. I suppose I could have made out that Ralph was disturbing me, but I’m not sure a server counts. As an old student, a server is supposed to be above being disturbed. Otherwise why did we learn the method? Still, it does disturb me. It itches, thinking of him having access to the net, thinking of what it would be like to open my email again. Or Facebook. Christ. Perhaps now I’ve got pen and paper I could write an anonymous note. RALPH HAS A BLACKBERRY. HE SURFS FOR PORN. Perhaps now I’ve started writing, I’ll start smoking again too. I could finish what’s left of that last pack. Then Ralph could report me. I’d let him get a whiff of smoky breath while we were scrubbing carrots. They’d ask me where I got cigarettes from, since I haven’t been out of the grounds for months. I’d confess and say I was sorry. To Mi Nu maybe. Mi Nu Wai. I’d like to have a reason to confess some stuff to her. I could tell her I skived off to the pub some nights. But I don’t think Ralph would report me. Ralph likes me. He’s always there to help scrape the plates and pull the gunk from the plughole after lunch. Perhaps he let me see his BlackBerry on purpose. Ralph likes me, but he’s too young, too sweet, too German. I never went for sweet boys. There must be dozens of more attractive men here. And women for that matter. It’s a good job sex is forbidden at the Dasgupta. Maybe there are good reasons for forbidding writing.
I didn’t go back to sleep again when I stayed in bed. The others got up with that lovely submission we all have in the morning. They went to meditation. But I lay in bed thinking. After about ten minutes Meredith came back to ask me if I was ill, but since even servers are only supposed to speak when they have to, I didn’t answer. Meredith’s a chubby kid, rather pretty, I suppose. She has a pretty smile. She’s going to start at Cambridge at the end of summer, so she says. I didn’t answer. I didn’t even shake my head. Now she’ll be wondering what’s up or what she did to offend me. Jesus. Why am I so mean? I don’t know. I enjoy it. I enjoy being nice and I enjoy being mean. I think Meredith deserves a bit of meanness. She definitely needs to lose some weight. If I ever had a chance of going to Cambridge, I blew it way back.
So I didn’t go back to sleep but lay there thinking. It’s been a while since I did this. In the past when I lay in bed thinking I’d be planning planning planning, I’d be anxious and excited. I’d be writing songs in my head, sorting out practice sessions, rehearsal space, gigs, emails, the website, money. But when I arrived at the Dasgupta I’d jump out of bed as fast as I could because the thoughts were horrible. The moment I woke up my head was pounding. No, that’s not right. There’d be one split second of peace before the thoughts came down like an avalanche and buried me. Then I’d curse that second of peace for making the avalanche so much worse. You’ve got to get over these thoughts, I kept telling myself. Got to got to. You have to kill these thoughts before they kill you. Kill kill kill. The Dasgupta is a great place for killing thoughts. I understood that. I realized at once how lucky I’d been to come here. I’d have died. But those days are gone. They’ve faded. This morning I just stayed in bed to think about yesterday’s find. I wanted to enjoy thinking over something new that’s happened, the first in months. Yesterday’s find has started me writing. I should be careful.
In one of the men’s rooms I found a diary. While the meditators meditate, the servers clean. The male servers clean the men’s side and the female servers the women’s. Every day the toilets, every other day the showers and the washbasins. Replenish the loo paper, the paper towels, tampons and sanitary pads, replenish the hand soap and the bio powder for people washing their socks and panties. Fish out the hair blocking the plugs. There are still people who chuck tampons in the loo. I don’t mind, the day passes. It’s weird how easily you can slip from meditation to washing floors, as if it was the same thing. But we had run out of disinfectant. Of course I’m not supposed to, but I went round to the male side. I hate to leave a job half done and the meditators were all away in the hall. Ralph and Rob were digging weeds from the path. ‘Cupboard at the end of the corridor,’ they said. ‘Dormitory A.’
I got the disinfectant, then, walking back down the corridor, I pushed open a door to see what the men’s rooms were like. Why do I do stuff like this? Someone could have been in there, meditating alone, and I would have offended him with my female form. Or even masturbating! You never know with men. Mrs Harper would have a heart attack.
It was a single room, so for someone elderly or disabled, or important somehow. No way I ever had a single room. A suitcase was open on the bed and it was full of red exercise books, which is against the rules. There were pens too, half a dozen biros. I picked up one of the exercise books. Just seeing the handwriting made me feel anxious. It was tall and very slanted, like a strong wind was blowing along the lines, bending the tops of the letters, pushing them towards the edge of the page. I read a few words and knew at once this guy was in serious trouble. Since evidently you’re incapable of deciding who you are you may as well become nothing. Stuff like that. Since you’ve destroyed everyone you’ve had anything to do with, don’t you owe it to them now to destroy yourself? No, it was more stylish than that. I can’t remember the exact words. Or more pompous. Definitely an oldie, I thought. Or maybe not. What do I know? Maybe a pompous handicapped kid or a teacher’s pet. One notebook was only half written and the last pages had this week’s date and stuff about arriving at the Dasgupta and only realizing when it was too late that he wouldn’t be able to get back to the locker where he’d left his mobile. No mobile for ten whole days. I smiled because the same thing had happened to me the first time. Happens to everyone. It’s a trick they play. Why do I always write as if this were for somebody else? he’d written. That got me weirdly excited.