“On the dim side,” she protested.
Dr. MacPhail shut his eyes, and, smiling to himself, began to recite:
“Thus-Gone to Thus-Gone, I with a Buddha’s hand
Offer the unplucked flower, the frog’s soliloquy
Among the lotus leaves, the milk-smeared mouth
At my full breast and love and, like the cloudless
Sky that makes possible mountains and setting moon,
This emptiness that is the womb of love
This poetry of silence.”
He opened his eyes again. “And not only this poetry of silence,” he said. “This science, this philosophy, this theology of silence. And now it’s high time you went to sleep.” He rose and moved towards the door. “I’ll go and get you a glass of fruit juice.”
9
“‘PATRIOTISM IS NOT ENOUGH.’ BUT NEITHER IS ANYTHING ELSE. Science is not enough, religion is not enough, art is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do.”
“Attention!” shouted a faraway bird.
Will looked at his watch. Five to twelve. He closed his Notes on What’s What and picking up the bamboo alpenstock which had once belonged to Dugald MacPhail, he set out to keep his appointment with Vijaya and Dr. Robert. By the short cut the main building of the Experimental Station was less than a quarter of a mile from Dr. Robert’s bungalow. But the day was oppressively hot, and there were two flights of steps to be negotiated. For a convalescent with his right leg in a splint, it was a considerable journey.
Slowly, painfully, Will made his way along the winding path and up the steps. At the top of the second flight he halted to take breath and mop his forehead; then keeping close to the wall, where there was still a narrow strip of shade, he moved on towards a signboard marked LABORATORY.
The door beneath the board was ajar; he pushed it open and found himself on the threshold of a long, high-ceilinged room. There were the usual sinks and worktables, the usual glass-fronted cabinets full of bottles and equipment, the usual smells of chemicals and caged mice. For the first moment Will was under the impression that the room was untenanted, but no—almost hidden from view by a bookcase that projected at right angles from the wall, young Murugan was seated at a table, intently reading. As quietly as he could—for it was always amusing to take people by surprise—Will advanced into the room. The whirring of an electric fan covered the sound of his approach, and it was not until he was within a few feet of the bookcase that Murugan became aware of his presence. The boy started guiltily, shoved his book with panic haste into a leather briefcase and, reaching for another, smaller volume that lay open on the table beside the briefcase, drew it within reading range. Only then did he turn to face the intruder.
Will gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s only me.”
The look of angry defiance gave place, on the boy’s face, to one of relief.
“I thought it was…” He broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“You thought it was someone who would bawl you out for not doing what you’re supposed to do—is that it?”
Murugan grinned and nodded his curly head.
“Where’s everyone else?” Will asked.
“They’re out in the fields—pruning or pollinating or something.” His tone was contemptuous.
“And so, the cats being away, the mouse duly played. What were you studying so passionately?”
With innocent disingenuousness, Murugan held up the book he was now pretending to read. “It’s called Elementary Ecology,” he said.
“So I see,” said Will. “But what I asked you was what were you reading?”
“Oh, that,” Murugan shrugged his shoulders. “You wouldn’t be interested.”
“I’m interested in everything that anyone tries to hide,” Will assured him. “Was it pornography?”
Murugan dropped his playacting and looked genuinely offended. “Who do you take me for?”
Will was on the point of saying that he took him for an average boy, but checked himself. To Colonel Dipa’s pretty young friend, “average boy” might sound like an insult or an innuendo. Instead he bowed with mock politeness. “I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” he said. “But I’m still curious,” he added in another tone. “May I?” He laid a hand on the bulging briefcase.
Murugan hesitated for a moment, then forced a laugh. “Go ahead.”
“What a tome!” Will pulled the ponderous volume out of the bag and laid it on the table. “Sears, Roebuck and Co.,” he read aloud, “Spring and Summer Catalog.”
“It’s last year’s,” said Murugan apologetically. “But I don’t suppose there’s been much change since then.”
“There,” Will assured him, “you’re mistaken. If the styles weren’t completely changed every year, there’d be no reason for buying new things before the old ones are worn out. You don’t understand the first principles of modern consumerism.” He opened at random. “‘Soft Platform Wedgies in Wide Widths.’” Opened at another place and found the description and image of a Whisper-Pink Bra in Dacron and Pima cotton. Turned the page and here, memento mori, was what the bra-buyer would be wearing twenty years later—A Strap-Controlled Front, Cupped to Support Pendulous Abdomen.
“It doesn’t get really interesting,” said Murugan, “until near the end of the book. It has thirteen hundred and fifty-eight pages,” he added parenthetically. “Imagine! Thirteen hundred and fifty-eight!”
Will skipped the next seven hundred and fifty pages.
“Ah, this is more like it,” he said. “‘Our Famous .22 Revolvers and Automatics.’” And here, a little further on, were the Fibre Glass Boats, here were the High Thrust Inboard Engines, here was a 12-hp Outboard for only $234.95—and the Fuel Tank was included. “That’s extraordinarily generous!”
But Murugan, it was evident, was no sailor. Taking the book, he leafed impatiently through a score of additional pages.
“Look at this Italian Style Motor Scooter!” And while Will looked, Murugan read aloud. “‘This sleek Speedster gives up to 110 Miles per Gallon of Fuel.’ Just imagine!” His normally sulky face was glowing with enthusiasm. “And you can get up to sixty miles per gallon even on this 14.5-hp Motorcycle. And it’s guaranteed to do seventy-five miles an hour—guaranteed!”
“Remarkable!” said Will. Then, curiously, “Did somebody in America send you this glorious book?” he asked.
Murugan shook his head. “Colonel Dipa gave it to me.”
“Colonel Dipa?” What an odd kind of present from Hadrian to Antinoüs! He looked again at the picture of the motorbike, then back at Murugan’s glowing face. Light dawned; the Colonel’s purpose revealed itself. The serpent tempted me, and I did eat. The tree in the midst of the garden was called the Tree of Consumer Goods, and to the inhabitants of every underdeveloped Eden the tiniest taste of its fruit, and even the sight of its thirteen hundred and fifty-eight leaves, had power to bring the shameful knowledge that, industrially speaking, they were stark-naked. The future Raja of Pala was being made to realize that he was no more than the untrousered ruler of a tribe of savages.
“You ought,” Will said aloud, “to import a million of these catalogues and distribute them—gratis, of course, like contraceptives—to all your subjects.”
“What for?”
“To whet their appetite for possessions. Then they’ll start clamoring for Progress—oil wells, armaments, Joe Aldehyde, Soviet technicians.”
Murugan frowned and shook his head. “It wouldn’t work.”
“You mean, they wouldn’t be tempted? Not even by Sleek Speedsters and Whisper-Pink Bras? But that’s incredible!”
“It may be incredible,” said Murugan bitterly, “but it’s a fact. They’re just not interested.”
“Not even the young ones?”
“I’d say especially the young ones.”
Will Farnaby pricked up his ears. This lack of interest was profoundly interesting. “Can you guess why?” he asked.
“I don’t guess,” the boy answered. “I know.” And as though he had suddenly decided to stage a parody of his mother, he began to speak in a tone of righteous indignation that was absurdly out of keeping with his age and appearance. “To begin with, they’re much too busy with…” He hesitated, then the abhorred word was hissed out with a disgustful emphasis. “With sex.”
“But everybody’s busy with sex. Which doesn’t keep them from whoring after sleek speedsters.”
“Sex is different here,” Murugan insisted.
“Because of the yoga of love?” Will asked, remembering the little nurse’s rapturous face.
The boy nodded. “They’ve got something that makes them think they’re perfectly happy, and they don’t want anything else.”
“What a blessed state!”
“There’s nothing blessed about it,” Murugan snapped. “It’s just stupid and disgusting. No progress, only sex, sex, sex. And of course that beastly dope they’re all given.”
“Dope?” Will repeated in some astonishment. Dope in a place where Susila had said there were no addicts? “What kind of dope?”
“It’s made out of toadstools. Toadstools!” He spoke in a comical caricature of the Rani’s vibrant tone of outraged spirituality.
“Those lovely red toadstools that gnomes used to sit on?”
“No, these are yellow. People used to go out and collect them in the mountains. Nowadays the things are grown in special fungus beds at the High Altitude Experimental Station. Scientifically cultivated dope. Pretty, isn’t it?”
A door slammed and there was a sound of voices, of footsteps approaching along a corridor. Abruptly, the indignant spirit of the
