Author: Aldous Huxley
Category: Literature
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“This way,” said the nurse, and held open a swing door.
Will stepped forward. The conditioned reflex of politeness clicked automatically into action. “Thank you,” he said, and smiled. But it was with a dull, sick feeling in the pit of the stomach that he went hobbling towards the apprehended future.
“The last door on the left,” said the nurse. But now she had to get back to her desk in the lobby. “So I’ll leave you to go on alone,” she added as the door closed behind her.
Alone, he repeated to himself, alone — and the apprehended future was identical with the haunting past, the Essential Horror was timeless and ubiquitous. This long corridor with its green-painted walls was the very same corridor along which, a year ago, he had walked to the little room where Molly lay dying. The nightmare was recurrent. Foredoomed and conscious, he moved on towards its horrible consummation. Death, yet another vision of death.
Thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four … He knocked and waited, listening to the beating of his heart. The door opened and he found himself face to face with little Radha.
“Susila was expecting you,” she whispered.
Will followed her into the room. Rounding a screen, he caught a glimpse of Susila’s profile silhouetted against a lamp, of a high bed, of a dark emaciated face on the pillow, of arms that were no more than parchment-covered bones, of claw-like hands. Once again the Essential Horror. With a shudder he turned away. Radha motioned him to a chair near the open window. He sat down and closed his eyes — closed them physically against the present, but, by that very act, opened them inwardly upon that hateful past of which the present had reminded him. He was there in that other room, with Aunt Mary. Or rather with the person who had once been Aunt Mary, but was now this hardly recognizable somebody else — somebody who had never so much as heard of the charity and courage which had been the very essence of Aunt Mary’s being; somebody who was filled with an indiscriminate hatred for all who came near her, loathing them, whoever they might be, simply because they didn’t have cancer, because they weren’t in pain, had not been sentenced to die before their time. And along with this malignant envy of other people’s health and happiness had gone a bitterly querulous self-pity, an abject despair.
“Why to me? Why should this thing have happened to me?”
He could hear the shrill complaining voice, could see that tear-stained and distorted face. The only person he had ever really loved or whole-heartedly admired. And yet, in her degradation, he had caught himself despising her — despising, positively hating.
To escape from the past, he re-opened his eyes. Radha, he saw, was sitting on the floor, cross-legged and upright, in the posture of meditation. In her chair beside the bed Susila seemed to be holding the same kind of focused stillness. He looked at the face on the pillow. That too was still, still with a serenity that might almost have been the frozen calm of death. Outside, in the leafy darkness, a peacock suddenly screamed. Deepened by contrast, the ensuing silence seemed to grow pregnant with mysterious and appalling meanings.
“Lakshmi.” Susila laid a hand on the old woman’s wasted arm. “Lakshmi,” she said again more loudly. The death-calm face remained impassive. “You mustn’t go to sleep.”
Not go to sleep? But for Aunt Mary, sleep — the artificial sleep that followed the injections — had been the only respite from the self-lacerations of self-pity and brooding fear.
“Lakshmi!”
The face came to life.
“I wasn’t really asleep,” the old woman whispered. “It’s just my being so weak. I seem to float away.”
“But you’ve got to be here,” said Susila. “You’ve got to know you’re here. All the time.” She slipped an additional pillow under the sick woman’s shoulders and reached for a bottle of smelling salts that stood on the bed table.
Lakshmi sniffed, opened her eyes and looked up into Susila’s face. “I’d forgotten how beautiful you were,” she said. “But then Dugald always did have good taste.” The ghost of a mischievous smile appeared for a moment on the fleshless face. “What do you think, Susila?” she added after a moment and in another tone. “Shall we see him again? I mean, over there?”
In silence Susila stroked the old woman’s hand. Then, suddenly smiling, “How would the Old Raja have asked that question?” she said. “Do you think ‘we’ (quote, unquote) shall see ‘him’ (quote, unquote) ‘over there’ (quote, unquote).”
“But what do you think?”
“I think we’ve all come out of the same light, and we’re all going back into the same light.”
Words, Will was thinking, words, words, words. With an effort, Lakshmi lifted a hand and pointed accusingly at the lamp on the bed table.
“It glares in my eyes,” she whispered.
Susila untied the red silk handkerchief knotted around her throat and draped it over the lamp’s parchment shade. From white and mercilessly revealing, the light became as dimly, warmly rosy as the flush, Will found himself thinking, on Babs’s rumpled bed, whenever Porter’s Gin proclaimed itself in crimson.
“That’s much better,” said Lakshmi. She shut her eyes. Then, after a long silence, “The light,” she broke out, “the light. It’s here again.” Then after another pause, “Oh, how wonderful,” she whispered at last, “how wonderful!” Suddenly she winced and bit her lip.
Susila took the old woman’s hand in both of hers. “Is the pain bad?” she asked.
“It would be bad,” Lakshmi explained, “if it were really my pain. But somehow it isn’t. The pain’s here; but I’m somewhere else. It’s like what you discover with the moksha-medicine. Nothing really belongs to you. Not even your pain.”
“Is the light still there?”
Lakshmi shook her head. “And looking back, I can tell you exactly when it went away. It went away when I started talking about the pain not being really mine.”
“And yet what you were saying was good.”
“I know — but I was saying it.” The ghost of an old habit of irreverent mischief flitted once again across Lakshmi’s face.
“What are you thinking of?” Susila asked.
“Socrates.”
“Socrates?”
“Gibber, gibber, gibber — even when he’d actually swallowed the stuff. Don’t let me talk, Susila. Help me to get out of my own light.”
“Do you remember that time last year,” Susila began after a silence, “when we all went up to the old Shiva temple above the High Altitude Station? You and Robert and Dugald and me and the two children — do you remember?”
Lakshmi smiled with pleasure at the recollection.
“I’m thinking specially of that view from the west side of the temple — the view out over the sea. Blue, green, purple — and the shadows of the clouds were like ink. And the clouds themselves — snow, lead, charcoal, satin. And while we were looking, you asked a question. Do you remember, Lakshmi?”
“You mean, about the Clear Light?”
“About the Clear Light,” Susila confirmed. “Why do people speak of Mind in terms of Light? Is it because they’ve seen the sunshine and found it so beautiful that it seems only natural to identify the Buddha Nature with the clearest of all possible Clear Lights? Or do they find the sunshine beautiful because, consciously or unconsciously, they’ve been having revelations of Mind in the form of Light ever since they were born? I was the first to answer,” said Susila, smiling to herself. “And as I’d just been reading something by some American Behaviourist, I didn’t stop to think — I just gave you the (quote, unquote) ‘scientific point of view’. People equate Mind (whatever that may be) with hallucinations of light, because they’ve looked at a lot of sunsets and found them very impressive. But Robert and Dugald would have none of it. The Clear Light, they insisted, comes first. You go mad about sunsets because sunsets remind you of what’s always been going on, whether you knew it or not, inside your skull and outside space and time. You agreed with them, Lakshmi — do you remember? You said, ‘I’
d like to be on your side, Susila, if only because it isn’t good for these men of ours to be right all the time. But in this case — surely it’s pretty obvious — in this case they are right.’ Of course they were right, and of course I was hopelessly wrong. And, needless to say, you had known the right answer before you ever asked the question.”
“I never knew anything,” Lakshmi whispered. “I could only see.”
“I remember your telling me about seeing the Clear Light,” said Susila. “Would you like me to remind you of it?”
The sick woman nodded her head.
“When you were eight years old,” said Susila. “That was the first time. An orange butterfly on a leaf, opening and shutting its wings in the sunshine — and suddenly there was the Clear Light of pure Suchness blazing through it, like another sun.”
“Much brighter than the sun,” Lakshmi whispered.
“But much gentler. You can look into the Clear Light and not be blinded. And now remember it. A butterfly on a green leaf, opening and shutting its wings — and it’s the Buddha Nature totally present, it’s the Clear Light outshining the sun. And you were only eight years old.”
“What had I done to deserve it?”
Will found himself remembering that evening, a week or so before her death, when Aunt Mary had talked about the wonderful times they had had together in her little Regency house near Arundel where he had spent the better part of all his holidays. Smoking out the wasps’ nests with fire and brimstone, having picnics on the downs or under the beeches. And then the sausage rolls at Bognor, the gypsy fortune teller who had prophesied that he would end up as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the black-robed, red-nosed verger who had chased them out of Chichester Cathedral because they laughed too much. “Laughed too much,” Aunt Mary had repeated bitterly. “Laughed too much …”
“And now,” Susila was saying, “think of that view from the Shiva temple. Think of those lights and shadows on the sea, those blue spaces between the clouds. Think of them, and then let go of your thinking. Let go of it, so that the not-Thought can come through. Things into Emptiness, Emptiness into Suchness. Suchness into things again, into your own mind. Remember what it says in the Sutra. ‘Your own consciousness shining, void, inseparable from the great Body of Radiance, is subject neither to birth nor death, but is the same as the immutable Light, Buddha Amitabha.’”
“The same as the light,” Lakshmi repeated. “And yet it’s all dark again.”
“It’s dark because you’re trying too hard,” said Susila. “Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. ‘Lightly, child, lightly. You’ve got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.’ I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humourless little prig. Lightly, lightly — it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I’m going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi … Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light. So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling. On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge-bag. Completely unencumbered.”
Completely unencumbered … Will thought of poor Aunt Mary sinking deeper and deeper with every step into the quicksands. Deeper and deeper until, struggling and protesting to the last, she had gone down, completely and forever, into the Essential Horror. He looked again at the fleshless face on the pillow and saw that it was smiling.
“The Light,” came the hoarse whisper, “the Clear Light. It’s here — along with the pain, in spite of the pain.”
“And where are you?” Susila asked.
“Over there, in the corner.” Lakshmi tried to point, but the raised hand faltered and fell back, inert, on the coverlet. “I can see myself there. And she can see my body on the bed.”
“Can she see the Light?”
“No. The Light’s here, where my body is.”
The door of the sickroom was quietly opened. Will turned his head and was in time to see Dr Robert’s small spare figure emerging from behind the screen into the rosy twilight.
Susila rose and motioned him to her place beside the bed. Dr Robert sat down and, leaning forward, took his wife’s hand in one of his and laid the other on her forehead.
“It’s me,” he whispered.
“At last …”
A tree, he explained, had fallen across the telephone line. No communication with the High Altitude Station except by road. They had sent a messenger in a car, and the car had broken down. More than two hours had been lost. “But thank goodness,” Dr Robert concluded, “here I finally am.”
The dying woman sighed profoundly, opened her eyes for a moment and looked up at him with a smile, then closed them again. “I knew you’d come.”
“Lakshmi,” he said very softly. “Lakshmi.” He drew the tips of his fingers across the wrinkled forehead, again and again. “My little love.” There were tears on his cheeks; but his voice was firm and he spoke with the tenderness, not of weakness, but of power.
“I’m not over there any more,” Lakshmi whispered.
“She was over there in the corner,” Susila explained to her father-in-law. “Looking at her body here on the bed.”
“But now I’ve come back. Me and the pain, me and the Light, me and you — all together.”
The peacock screamed again and, through the insect noises that in this tropical night were the equivalent of silence, far off but clear, came the sound of gay music, flutes and plucked strings and the steady throbbing of drums.
“Listen,” said Dr Robert. “Can you hear it? They’re dancing.”
“Dancing,” Lakshmi repeated. “Dancing.”
“Dancing so lightly,” Susila whispered. “As though they had wings.”
The music swelled up again into audibility.
“It’s the Courting Dance,” Susila went on.
“The Courting Dance. Robert, do you remember?”
“Could I ever forget?”
Yes, Will said to himself, could one ever forget? Could one ever forget that other distant music and, near by, unnaturally quick and shallow, the sound of dying breath in a boy’s ears? In the house across the street somebody was practising one of those Brahms Waltzes that Aunt Mary had loved to play. One-two and three and One-two and three and O-o-o-ne two three, One — and One and Two-Three and One and … The odious stranger who had once been Aunt Mary stirred out of her artificial stupor and opened her eyes. An expression of the most intense malignity had appeared on the yellow, wasted face. “Go and tell them to stop,” the harsh unrecognizable voice had almost screamed. And then the lines of malignity had changed into the lines of despair, and the stranger, the pitiable odious stranger started to sob uncontrollably. Those Brahms Waltzes — they were the pieces, out of all her repertory, that Frank had loved best.
Another gust of cool air brought with it a louder strain of the gay, bright music.
“All those young people dancing together,” said Dr Robert, “All that laughter and desire, all that uncomplicated happiness. It’s all here, like an atmosphere, like a field of force. Their joy and our love — Susila’s love, my love — all working together, all reinforcing one another. Love and joy enveloping you, my darling; love and joy carrying you up into the peace of the Clear Light. Listen to the music. Can you still hear it, Lakshmi?”
“She’s drifted away again,” said Susila. “Try to bring her back.”
Dr Robert slipped an arm under the emaciated body and lifted it into a sitting posture. The head drooped sideways on to
his shoulder.
“My little love,” he kept whispering. “My little love …”
Her eyelids fluttered open for a moment. “Brighter,” came the barely audible whisper, “brighter.” And a smile of happiness intense almost to the point of elation transfigured her face.
Through his tears Dr Robert smiled back at her. “So now you can let go, my darling.” He stroked her grey hair. “Now you can let go. Let go,” he insisted. “Let go of this poor old body. You don’t need it any more. Let it fall away from you. Leave it lying here like a pile of worn-out clothes.”
In the fleshless face the mouth had fallen open, and suddenly the breathing became stertorous.
“My love, my little love …” Dr Robert held her more closely. “Let go now, let go. Leave it here, your old worn-out body, and go on. Go on, my darling go on into the Light, into the peace, into the living peace of the Clear Light …”
Susila picked up one of the limp hands and kissed it, then turned to little Radha.
“Time to go,” she whispered, touching the girl’s shoulder.
Interrupted in her meditation, Radha opened her eyes, nodded and, scrambling to her feet, tiptoed silently towards the door. Susila beckoned to Will and, together, they followed her. In silence the three of them walked along the corridor. At the swing door Radha took her leave.
“Thank you for letting me be with you,” she whispered.
Susila kissed her. “Thank you for helping to make it easier for Lakshmi.”
Will followed Susila across the lobby and out into the warm odorous darkness. In silence they started to walk downhill towards the market place.
“And now,” he said at last, speaking under a strange compulsion to deny his emotion in a display of the cheapest kind of cynicism, “I suppose she’s trotting off to do a little maithuna with her boy friend.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Susila calmly, “she’s on night duty. But if she weren’t, what would be the objection to her going on from the yoga of death to the yoga of love?”