Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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The king cocked his head and listened.
“I hear the groans of dying men,” he said. “I hear the shriek of widows, the sobbing of the motherless, the mutterings of prayer and supplication.”
“Supplication!” said the deity in the clouds. “That’s the spirit.” He patted himself on the chest.
“They had some kind of a virus,” Mary Sarojini explained in a whisper. “Like Asian flu, only a lot worse.”
“We repeat the appropriate litanies,” the old priest querulously piped, “we offer the most expensive sacrifices, we have the whole population living in chastity and flagellating itself every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But the flood of death spreads ever more widely, rises higher and ever higher. So help us, King Oedipus, help us.”
“Only a god can help.”
“Hear, hear!” shouted the presiding deity.
“But by what means?”
“Only a god can say.”
“Correct,” said the god in his basso profondo, “absolutely correct.”
“Creon, my wife’s brother, has gone to consult the oracle. When he returns — as very soon he must — we shall know what heaven advises.”
“What heaven bloody well commands!” the basso profondo emended.
“Were people really so silly?” Mary Sarojini asked, as the audience laughed.
“Really and truly,” Will assured her.
A phonograph started to play the Dead March in Saul.
From left to right a black-robed procession of mourners carrying sheeted biers passed slowly across the front of the stage. Puppet after puppet — and as soon as the group had disappeared on the right it would be brought in again from the left. The procession seemed endless, the corpses innumerable.
“Dead,” said Oedipus as he watched them pass. “And another dead. And yet another, another.”
“That’ll teach them!” the basso profondo broke in. “I’ll learn you to be a toad!”
Oedipus continued,
“The soldier’s bier, the whore’s; the babe stone-cold
Pressed to the ache of unsucked breasts; the youth in horror
Turning away from the black swollen face
That from his moonlit pillow once looked up,
Eager for kisses. Dead, all dead,
Mourned by the soon to die and by the doomed
Borne with reluctant footing to the abhorred
Garden of cypresses where one huge pit
Yawns to receive them, stinking to the moon.”
While he was speaking, two new puppets, a boy and a girl in the gayest of Palanese finery, entered from the right and, moving in the opposite direction to the black-robed mourners, took their stand arm in arm, downstage and a little left of centre.
“But we, meanwhile,” said the boy when Oedipus had finished,
“Are bound for rosier gardens and the absurd
Apocalyptic rite that in the mind
Calls forth from the touched skin and melting flesh
The immanent Infinite.”
“What about Me?” the basso profondo rumbled from the welkin. “You seem to forget that I’m Wholly Other.”
Endlessly the black procession to the cemetery still shuffled on. But now the Dead March was interrupted in mid-phrase. Music gave place to a single deep note — tuba and double bass — prolonged interminably. The boy in the foreground held up his hand.
“Listen! The drone, the everlasting burden.”
In unison with the unseen instruments the mourners began to chant. “Death, death, death, death …”
“But life knows more than one note,” said the boy.
“Life,” the girl chimed in, “can sing both high and low.”
“And your unceasing drone of death serves only to make a richer music.”
“A richer music,” the girl repeated.
And with that, tenor and treble, they started to vocalize a wandering arabesque of sound wreathed, as it were, about the long rigid shaft of the ground bass.
The drone and the singing diminished gradually into silence; the last of the mourners disappeared and the boy and girl in the foreground retired to a corner where they could go on with their kissing undisturbed.
There was another flourish of trumpets and, obese in a purple tunic, in came Creon, fresh from Delphi and primed with oracles. For the next few minutes the dialogue was all in Palanese, and Mary Sarojini had to act as interpreter.
“Oedipus asks him what God said; and the other one says that what God said was that it was all because of some man having killed the old king, the one before Oedipus. Nobody had ever caught him, and the man was still living in Thebes, and this virus that was killing everybody had been sent by God — that’s what Creon says he was told — as a punishment. I don’t know why all these people who hadn’t done anything to anybody had to be punished; but that’s what he says God said. And the virus won’t stop till they catch the man that killed the old king and send him away from Thebes. And of course Oedipus says he’s going to do everything he can to find the man and get rid of him.”
From his downstage corner the boy began to declaim, this time in English.
“God, most Himself when most sublimely vague,
Talks, when His talk is plain, the ungodliest bosh.
Repent, He roars, for Sin has caused the plague.
But we say ‘Dirt — so wash.’”
While the audience was still laughing, another group of mourners emerged from the wings and slowly crossed the stage.
“Karuna,” said the girl in the foreground, “compassion. The suffering of the stupid is as real as any other suffering.”
Feeling a touch on his arm, Will turned and found himself looking into the beautiful sulky face of young Murugan.
“I’ve been hunting for you everywhere,” he said angrily, as though Will had concealed himself on purpose, just to annoy him. He spoke so loudly that many heads were turned and there were calls for quiet.
“You weren’t at Dr Robert’s, you weren’t at Susila’s,” the boy nagged on, regardless of the protests.
“Quiet, quiet …”
“Quiet!” came a tremendous shout from Basso Profondo in the clouds. “Things have come to a pretty pass,” the voice added grumblingly, “when God simply can’t hear himself speak.”
“Hear, hear,” said Will, joining in the general laughter. He rose, and followed by Murugan and Mary Sarojini, hobbled towards the exit.
“Didn’t you want to see the end?” Mary Sarojini asked, and turning to Murugan, “You really might have waited,” she said in a tone of reproof.
“Mind your own business!” Murugan snapped.
Will laid a hand on the child’s shoulder. “Luckily,” he said, “your account of the end was so vivid that I don’t have to see it with my own eyes. And of course,” he added ironically, “His Highness must always come first.”
Murugan pulled an envelope out of the pocket of those white silk pyjamas which had so bedazzled the little nurse and handed it to Will. “From my Mother.” And he added, “It’s urgent.”
“How good it smells!” Mary Sarojini commented, sniffing at the rich aura of sandalwood that surrounded the Rani’s missive.
Will unfolded three sheets of heaven-blue notepaper embossed with five golden lotuses under a princely crown. How many underlinings, what a profusion of capital letters! He started to read.
“Ma Petite Voix, cher Farnaby, avait raison — AS USUAL! I had been TOLD again and again what Our Mutual Friend was predestined to do for poor little Pala and (through the financial support which Pala will permit him to contribute to the Crusade of the Spirit) for the WHOLE WORLD. So when I read his cable (which arrived a few minutes ago, by way of the faithful Bahu and his diplomatic colleague in London), it came as NO surprise to learn that Lord A has given you Full Powers (and, it goes without saying, the WHEREWITHAL) to negotiate on his behalf — on our behalf; for his advantage is also yours, mine and (since in our different ways we are all Crusaders) t
he SPIRIT’S!!
But the arrival of Lord A’s cable is not the only piece of news I have to report. Events (as we learned this afternoon from Bahu) are rushing towards the Great Turning Point of Palanese History — rushing far more rapidly than I had previously thought to be possible. For reasons which are partly political (the need to offset a recent decline in Colonel D’s popularity), partly Economic (the burdens of Defence are too onerous to be borne by Rendang alone) and partly Astrological (these days, say the Experts, are uniquely favourable for a joint venture by Rams — myself and Murugan — and that typical Scorpion, Colonel D.) it has been decided to precipitate an Action originally planned for the night of the lunar eclipse next November. This being so, it is essential that the three of us here should meet without delay to decide what must be Done, in these new and swiftly changing Circumstances, to promote our special interests, material and Spiritual. The so-called ‘Accident’ which brought you to our shores at this most Critical Moment was, as you must recognize, Manifestly Providential. It remains for us to collaborate, as dedicated Crusaders, with that divine POWER which has so unequivocally espoused our Cause. So COME AT ONCE! Murugan has the motor car and will bring you to our modest Bungalow, where, I assure you, my dear Farnaby, you will receive a very warm welcome from bien sincèrement vôtre, Fatima R.”
Will folded up the three odorous sheets of scrawled blue paper and replaced them in their envelope. His face was expressionless; but behind this mask of indifference he was violently angry. Angry with this ill-mannered boy before him, so ravishing in his white silk pyjamas, so odious in his spoiled silliness. Angry, as he caught another whiff of the letter, with that grotesque monster of a woman, who had begun by ruining her son in the name of mother love and chastity, and was now egging him on, in the name of God and an assortment of Ascended Masters, to become a bomb-dropping spiritual crusader under the oily banner of Joe Aldehyde. Angry, above all, with himself for having so wantonly become involved with this ludicrously sinister couple, in heaven only knew what kind of a vile plot against all the human decencies that his refusal to take yes for an answer had never prevented him from secretly believing in and (how passionately!) longing for.
“Well, shall we go?” said Murugan in a tone of airy confidence. He was evidently assuming as axiomatic that, when Fatima R. issued a command, obedience must necessarily be complete and unhesitating.
Feeling the need to give himself a little more time to cool off, Will made no immediate answer. Instead, he turned away to look at the now distant puppets. Jocasta, Oedipus and Creon were sitting on the Palace steps, waiting, presumably for the arrival of Tiresias. Overhead, Basso Profondo was momentarily napping. A party of black-robed mourners was crossing the stage. Near the footlights the boy from Pala had begun to declaim in blank verse.
“Light and Compassion,” he was saying,
“Light and Compassion — how unutterably
Simple our Substance! But the Simple waited,
Age after age, for intricacies sufficient
To know their One in multitude, their Everything
Here, now, their Fact in fiction; waited and still
Waits on the absurd, on incommensurables
Seamlessly interwoven — oestrin with
Charity, truth with kidney function, beauty
With chyle, bile, sperm, and God with dinner, God
With dinner’s absence or the sound of bells
Suddenly — one, two, three — in sleepless ears.”
There was a ripple of plucked strings, then the long-drawn notes of a flute.
“Shall we go?” Murugan repeated.
But Will held up his hand for silence. The girl puppet had moved to the centre of the stage and was singing.
“Thought is the brain’s three milliards
Of cells from the inside out.
Billions of games of billiards
Marked up as Faith and Doubt.
My Faith, but their collisions;
My logic, their enzymes;
Their pink epinephrin, my visions;
Their white epinephrin, my crimes.
Since I am the felt arrangement
Of ten to the ninth times three,
Each atom in its estrangement
Must yet be prophetic of me.”
Losing all patience, Murugan caught hold of Will’s arm and gave him a savage pinch. “Are you coming?” he shouted.
Will turned on him angrily. “What the devil do you think you’re doing, you little fool?” He jerked his arm out of the boy’s grasp.
Intimidated, Murugan changed his tone. “I just wanted to know if you were ready to come to my mother’s.”
“I’m not ready,” Will answered, “because I’m not going.”
“Not going?” Murugan cried in a tone of incredulous amazement. “But she expects you, she …”
“Tell your mother I’m very sorry, but I have a prior engagement. With someone who’s dying,” Will added.
“But this is frightfully important.”
“So is dying.”
Murugan lowered his voice. “Something’s happening,” he whispered.
“I can’t hear you,” Will shouted through the confused noises of the crowd.
Murugan glanced about him apprehensively, then risked a somewhat louder whisper. “Something’s happening, something tremendous.”
“Something even more tremendous is happening at the hospital.”
“We just heard …” Murugan began. He looked around again, then shook his head. “No, I can’t tell you — not here. That’s why you must come to the bungalow. Now, There’s no time to lose.”
Will glanced at his watch. “No time to lose,” he echoed and, turning to Mary Sarojini, “We must get going,” he said. “Which way?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, and they set off hand in hand.
“Wait,” Murugan implored, “wait!” Then, as Will and Mary Sarojini held on their course, he came dodging through the crowd in pursuit. “What shall I tell her?” he wailed at their heels.
The boy’s terror was comically abject. In Will’s mind anger gave place to amusement. He laughed aloud. Then, halting, “What would you tell her, Mary Sarojini?” he asked.
“I’d tell her exactly what happened,” said the child. “I mean, if it was my mother. But then,” she added on second thought, “my mother isn’t the Rani.” She looked up at Murugan. “Do you belong to an MAC?” she enquired.
Of course he didn’t. For the Rani the very idea of a Mutual Adoption Club was a blasphemy. Only God could make a Mother. The Spiritual Crusader wanted to be alone with her God-given victim.
“No MAC.” Mary Sarojini shook her head. “That’s awful! You might have gone and stayed for a few days with one of your other mothers.”
Still terrified by the prospect of having to tell his only mother about the failure of his mission, Murugan began to harp almost hysterically on a new variant of the old theme. “I don’t know what she’ll say,” he kept repeating. “I don’t know what she’ll say.”
“There’s only one way to find out what she’ll say,” Will told him. “Go home and listen.”
“Come with me,” Murugan begged. “Please.” He clutched at Will’s arm.
“I told you not to touch me.” The clutching hand was hastily withdrawn. Will smiled again. “That’s better!” He raised his staff in a farewell gesture. “Bonne nuit, Altesse.” Then to Mary Sarojini, “Lead on, MacPhail,” he said in high good humour.
“Were you putting it on?” Mary Sarojini asked. “Or were you really angry?”
“Really and truly,” he assured her. Then he remembered what he had seen in the school gymnasium. He hummed the opening notes of the Rakshasi Hornpipe and banged the pavement with his ironshod staff.
“Ought I to have stamped it out?”
“Maybe it would have been better.”
“You think so?”
“He’s going to hate you as soon as he’s stopped being frightened.”
Will shrugged his shoulders. He couldn’t care less. But as the past receded and the future approached, as they left the arc lamps of the market place and climbed the steep dark street that wound uphill to the hospital, his mood began to change. Lead on, MacPhail — but towards what, and away from what? Towards yet another manifestation of the Essential Horror and away from all hope of that blessed year of freedom which Joe Aldehyde had promised and that it would be so easy and (since Pala was doomed in any event) not so immoral or treacherous to earn. And not only away from the hope of freedom; away quite possibly if the Rani complained to Joe and if Joe became sufficiently indignant, from any further prospects of well-paid slavery as a professional execution-watcher. Should he turn back, should he try to find Murugan, offer apologies, do whatever that dreadful woman ordered him to do? A hundred yards up the road, the lights of the hospital could be seen shining between the trees.
“Let’s rest for a moment,” he said.
“Are you tired?” Mary Sarojini enquired solicitously.
“A little.”
He turned and, leaning on his staff, looked down at the market place. In the light of the arc lamps, the town hall glowed pink, like a monumental serving of raspberry sherbet. On the temple spire he could see, frieze above frieze, the exuberant chaos of Indic sculpture — elephants, demons, girls with supernatural breasts and bottoms, capering Shivas, rows of past and future Buddhas in quiet ecstasy. Below in the space between sherbet and mythology, seethed the crowd, and somewhere in that crowd was a sulky face and a pair of white satin pyjamas. Should he go back? It would be the sensible, the safe, the prudent thing to do. But an inner voice — not little, like the Rani’s, but stentorian — shouted, ‘Squalid! Squalid!’ Conscience? No. Morality? Heaven forbid! But supererogatory squalor, ugliness and vulgarity beyond the call of duty — these were things which, as a man of taste, one simply couldn’t be a party to.
“Well, shall we go on?” he said to Mary Sarojini.
They entered the lobby of the hospital. The nurse at the desk had a message for them from Susila. Mary Sarojini was to go directly to Mrs Rao’s, where she and Tom Krishna would spend the night. Mr Farnaby was to be asked to come at once to Room 34.