“What was it about?”
“About the way they treat people with neurotic symptoms. We just couldn’t believe our ears. They never attack on all the fronts; they only attack on about half of one front. So far as they’re concerned, the physical fronts don’t exist. Except for a mouth and an anus, their patient doesn’t have a body. He isn’t an organism, he wasn’t born with a constitution or a temperament. All he has is the two ends of a digestive tube, a family and a psyche.
But what sort of psyche? Obviously not the whole mind, not the mind as it really is. How could it be that when they take no account of a person’s anatomy, or biochemistry or physiology? Mind abstracted from body—that’s the only front they attack on. And not even on the whole of that front. The man with the cigar kept talking about the unconscious. But the only unconscious they ever pay attention to is the negative unconscious, the garbage that people have tried to get rid of by burying it in the basement. Not a single word about the positive unconscious.
No attempt to help the patient to open himself up to the life force or the Buddha Nature. And no attempt even to teach him to be a little more conscious in his everyday life. You know: ‘Here and now, boys.’ ‘Attention.’” She gave an imitation of the mynah birds. “These people just leave the unfortunate neurotic to wallow in his old bad habits of never being all there in present time. The whole thing is just pure idiocy! No, the man with the cigar didn’t even have that excuse; he was as clever as clever can be. So it’s not idiocy. It must be something voluntary, something self-induced—like getting drunk or talking yourself into believing some piece of foolishness because it happens to be in the Scriptures.
And then look at their idea of what’s normal. Believe it or not, a normal human being is one who can have an orgasm and is adjusted to his society.” Once again the little nurse held her head between her hands. “It’s unimaginable! No question about what you do with your orgasms. No question about the quality of your feelings and thoughts and perceptions. And then what about the society you’re supposed to be adjusted to? Is it a mad society or a sane one? And even if it’s pretty sane, is it right that anybody should be completely adjusted to it?”
With another of his twinkling smiles, “Those whom God would destroy,” said the Ambassador, “He first makes mad. Or alternatively, and perhaps even more effectively, He first makes them sane.” Mr. Bahu rose and walked to the window. “My car has come for me. I must be getting back to Shivapuram and my desk.” He turned to Will and treated him to a long and flowery farewell. Then, switching off the Ambassador, “Don’t forget to write that letter,” he said. “It’s very important.” He smiled conspiratorially and, passing his thumb back and forth across the first two fingers of his right hand, he counted out invisible money.
“Thank goodness,” said the little nurse when he had gone.
“What was his offense?” Will enquired. “The usual thing?”
“Offering money to someone you want to go to bed with—but she doesn’t like you. So you offer more. Is that usual where he comes from?”
“Profoundly usual,” Will assured her.
“Well, I didn’t like it.”
“So I could see. And here’s another question. What about Murugan?”
“What makes you ask?”
“Curiosity. I noticed that you’d met before. Was that when he was here two years ago without his mother?”
“How did you know about that?”
“A little bird told me—or rather an extremely massive bird.”
“The Rani! She must have made it sound like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
“But unfortunately I was spared the lurid details. Dark hints—that was all she gave me. Hints, for example, about veteran Messalinas giving lessons in love to innocent young boys.”
“And did he need those lessons!”
“Hints, too, about a precocious and promiscuous girl of his own age.”
Nurse Appu burst out laughing.
“Did you know her?”
“The precocious and promiscuous girl was me.”
“You? Does the Rani know it?”
“Murugan only gave her the facts, not the names. For which I’m very grateful. You see, I’d behaved pretty badly. Losing my head about someone I didn’t really love and hurting someone I did. Why is one so stupid?”
“The heart has its reasons,” said Will, “and the endocrines have theirs.”
There was a long silence. He finished the last of his cold boiled fish and vegetables. Nurse Appu handed him a plate of fruit salad.
“You’ve never seen Murugan in white satin pajamas,” she said.
“Have I missed something?”
“You’ve no idea how beautiful he looks in white satin pajamas. Nobody has any right to be so beautiful. It’s indecent. It’s taking an unfair advantage.”
It was the sight of him in those white satin pajamas from Sulka that had finally made her lose her head. Lose it so completely that for two months she had been someone else—an idiot who had gone chasing after a person who couldn’t bear her and had turned her back on the person who had always loved her, the person she herself had always loved.
“Did you get anywhere with the pajama boy?” Will asked.
“As far as a bed,” she answered. “But when I started to kiss him, he jumped out from between the sheets and locked himself in the bathroom. He wouldn’t come out until I’d passed his pajamas through the transom and given him my word of honor that he wouldn’t be molested. I can laugh about it now; but at the time, I tell you, at the time…” She shook her head. “Pure tragedy. They must have guessed, from the way I carried on, what had happened. Precocious and promiscuous girls, it was obvious, were no good. What he needed was regular lessons.”
“And the rest of the story I know,” said Will. “Boy writes to Mother, Mother flies home and whisks him off to Switzerland.”
“And they didn’t come back until about six months ago. And for at least half of that time they were in Rendang, staying with Murugan’s aunt.”
Will was on the point of mentioning Colonel Dipa, then remembered that he had promised Murugan to be discreet and said nothing.
From the garden came the sound of a whistle.
“Excuse me,” said the little nurse and went to the window. Smiling happily at what she saw, she waved her hand. “It’s Ranga.”
“Who’s Ranga?”
“That friend of mine I was talking about. He wants to ask you some questions. May he come in for a minute?”
“Of course.”
She turned back to the window and made a beckoning gesture.
“This means, I take it, that the white satin pajamas are completely out of the picture.”
She nodded. “It was only a one-act tragedy. I found my head almost as quickly as I’d lost it. And when I’d found it, there was Ranga, the same as ever, waiting for me.” The door swung open and a lanky young man in gym shoes and khaki shorts came into the room.
“Ranga Karakuran,” he announced as he shook Will’s hand.
“If you’d come five minutes earlier,” said Radha, “you’d have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Bahu.”
“Was he here?” Ranga made a grimace of disgust.
“Is he as bad as all that?” Will asked.
Ranga listed the indictments. “A: He hates us. B: He’s Colonel Dipa’s tame jackal. C: He’s the unofficial ambassador of all the oil companies. D: The old pig made passes at Radha. And E: He goes about giving lectures about the need for a religious revival. He’s even published a book about it. Complete with preface by someone at the Harvard Divinity School. It’s all part of the campaign against Palanese independence. God is Dipa’s alibi. Why can’t criminals be frank about what they’re up to? All this disgusting idealistic hogwash—it makes one vomit.”
Radha stretched out her hand and gave his ear three sharp tweaks.
“You little…” he began angrily; then broke off and laughed. “You’re quite right,” he said. “All the same, you didn’t have to pull quite so hard.”
“Is that what you always do when he gets worked up?” Will enquired of Radha.
“Whenever he gets worked up at the wrong moment, or over things he can’t do anything about.”
Will turned to the boy. “And do you ever have to tweak her ear?”
Ranga laughed. “I find it more satisfactory,” he said, “to smack her bottom. Unfortunately, she rarely needs it.”
“Does that mean she’s better balanced than you are?”
“Better balanced? I tell you, she’s abnormally sane.”
“Whereas you’re merely normal?”
“Maybe a little left of center.” He shook his head. “I get horribly depressed sometimes—feel I’m no good for anything.”
“Whereas in fact,” said Radha, “he’s so good that they’ve given him a scholarship to study biochemistry at the University of Manchester.”
“What do you do with him when he plays these despairing, miserable-sinner tricks on you? Pull his ears?”
“That,” she said, “and…well, other things.” She looked at Ranga and Ranga looked at her. Then they both burst out laughing.
“Quite,” said Will. “Quite. And these other things being what they are,” he went on, “is Ranga looking forward to the prospect of leaving Pala for a couple of years?”
“Not much,” Ranga
