Three Continents (17 page)

I had expected that next day Michael and I would talk about what happened, but the unusual silence continued between us. It wasn't that we were distant with each other but only that we didn't talk about—well, about Crishi. Crishi himself continued to be absolutely natural with both of us, as if nothing at all had occurred. But for me it
had
occurred, and it was like a revolution inside me—a physical one almost, with my heart, my womb, or whatever was the deepest part of me, overturned and in turmoil. I was in a state of the highest excitement, both pleasurable and painful. I looked back on the previous night—carried it inside me—but did
not think I could bear another one like it: I mean, I wanted it yet dreaded it. But there was no repetition, for Crishi decided that everything was in order with the house and we could leave. The followers stayed behind to supervise the work being done on the house.

Michael and I spent most of the next week in New York, seeing Mr. Pritchett and Grandfather's accountants and signing all sorts of papers to effect the settlement of the estate. We had been through it all before, after Lindsay's father's death, so we were familiar with the procedure as well as the shift of attitude toward us. I guess Michael and I were very rich now, and what we felt more than anything was the responsibility of our position. We wanted to do everything right and to behave right. Michael was even paler than usual, and he often frowned trying to understand something the accountant told us; and when he had understood it, he made sure that I did too. As always, we were and acted like one person, even though we had not yet spoken of the night on the beach. Manton had gone back to Spain with Barbara, and we stayed in Sonya's house. It had become a very busy household—when Grandfather was there, he always needed a lot of quiet for his work but now all Sonya's friends were coming to call and comfort her. They wept together and stayed for hours and others joined them, and it was rather like a party going on all day, with constant meals being prepared in the kitchen. Sometimes Sonya herself went down there, to make something very special for Michael and me, like her own little Russian tea cakes that she knew we loved.

Crishi called us every evening at the same time, and we both waited for the phone to ring at that time. I restrained myself from running to answer it because I knew how much Michael wanted to; but he always called to me quite soon to pick up the phone in my room, and Crishi talked to both of us. He talked about what the weather was like up there, and what Else Schwamm had been cooking for dinner, and whatever news there was—nothing that he couldn't have said to anyone, except that his voice held something very intimate for us alone, spoken to each of us alone, so that the most banal words were like a secret or a promise; but whether it was the same one for both of us I don't know. He didn't ever say “When are you coming back?” or “I miss you,” and at
first I assumed that was what he meant, that it was what lay behind his intimate tone. But when he didn't come out with it, I became impatient: I wanted to hear those words, and more than that, I wanted to act on them—that is, go back to Propinquity. Because I missed him terribly, though I was with the people I loved most, with Michael and Sonya and in her house. Perhaps it would be more accurate or more honest to say that it was not so much Crishi I missed as the sensation he had made me undergo that night, first the intense longing in the empty swimming pool, then the pain and bliss on the beach. I tried not to think of it—not to give way to my desire—but by the third night away from him, it was overwhelming. I had to bury my head in my pillow, seeking relief by drowning myself in darkness, while my whole body shuddered in an attempt to reach out toward an unattainable satisfaction. I felt ashamed to be overcome that way but couldn't help myself.

At last our work in the city was done—at least, Michael said it was, or it may have been that he too was very anxious to get back. We left as soon as our last meeting with yet another trust officer was over; Sonya begged us to stay at least till next morning, and while we wanted to be with her, we couldn't. The drive to Propinquity was a familiar one, over the parkway, winding past meadows and hills and new young woods with spindly trees. Everything was green for summer, with sudden flashes of water—estuaries of the river, lakes and reservoirs, or just a little silver pool of rainwater sunk in grass. And the sweet homely names of the places along the way: Cow Pond Lane, Butterfield Farm Road, Pudding Hill—after each one, I thought, We'll talk about it now, meaning the night on the beach, but each time I decided, No, later, and Michael probably decided the same; so we never did get around to it—in fact, we hardly spoke, neither of us wanting to spoil the beautiful drive or the anticipation of our arrival.

It was late when we got there, but Crishi was waiting for us to go swimming by the waterfall. We went straightaway, not bothering to take our things out of the car. We descended the rocky path—we were so used to it, we never had to look where to put our feet though it was dark and very slippery; I kept thinking of the phrase “skipping like lambs,” and it
applied both to our bodies and our hearts. That was a wonderful swim we had, the three of us flitting around naked in the water, Michael and I like two white fish and Crishi slightly darker. The water gushed down from the rock and drowned out the noise we were making—a lot that night, for we had much to talk and to laugh about, as we dived and swam and circled around one another. When we finished, we didn't linger as usual in the high meadow but were in a hurry to get to the house and our rooms. I lay on my bed, damp and happy and tired from our swim. I felt so confident he would come that I even fell asleep for a bit; but when I woke up, it was by myself, for he hadn't come. The strong and shameful sensation swept over me again, as it had in Sonya's house, and I thought I couldn't bear it, having to wait anymore; but I did bear it, and also the thought that the reason he didn't come was that he was with Michael—I endured that too and accepted it for the sake of both of them.

Next day I thought that now surely Michael and I would talk—about the night on the beach as well as about last night and whether Crishi had gone to Michael. But again we said nothing, and neither did Crishi—at least not on those two subjects, though on plenty of others; he had a lot to say that day and was in a terrific good mood. At night we went to the waterfall again, and made the same amount of noise, but it was not so good this time because I felt tense and anxious, wondering what would happen later. What happened was that Crishi did come to me—very late, in fact it was the early hours of the morning, and by that time I thought if he doesn't come I'll go mad—but no, he came and lay on my bed with me, and it was a combination of swimming pool and beach: that is, the first time disappointment, the second time fulfillment. There was a third time too—he was very strong that night, which made him cruel, but that was part of it, I found. Next day again no one said anything, and there began a pattern: After swimming by the waterfall, one night he was with me and the following night not, and while each time I expected to ask Michael next day whether he had been with him, I never did, so I was never sure.

Meanwhile the work of the movement continued in the house, and everyone except me was very busy. Myself and
Jean—she appeared to be the only other person who was not working for the Rawul. She had even lost her occupation, for the gardening she used to do had been taken over by the followers and on a much larger and more efficient scale. Everything in the house was on such a scale—for instance, Else Schwamm's kitchen: She was still ostensibly in charge, but she had a rostrum of followers to help her prepare an unending succession of meals and snacks. It had become almost a hotel kitchen, for besides the many people living in the house, a whole lot of visitors came for the Rawul. There were leaders of newly formed political or religious groups, ecologists, social activists, free-lance writers and journalists, parapsychologists, spiritualists, scientists and economists with revolutionary theories—every kind of person who felt called upon to change the world and men's minds; and if individually they gave the impression of being lonely cranks, together they made quite an impressive front of alternative opinion. And however poor, solitary, far-out, or even crazy they appeared, the Rawul received them ceremoniously in the front drawing room for a high-level discussion or exchange of fruitful ideas; and as they arrived one by one and were received, orders went down to the kitchen for refreshments to be sent up. And it would have been beneath both the Rawul's dignity and Else Schwamm's if these had not been elaborate and elegantly served. The visitors had good appetites, and some of them seemed not to have eaten well for a long time. All went away satisfied with the refreshments, and with the Rawul himself—his seriousness combined with his courtly manner; and Propinquity, now restored, thanks to the followers, to former grandeur; the order and discipline of the entire household, apparent from the first contact with the gatekeeper and his walkie-talkie and reinforced by the silent obedient figures of the followers in their semiuniforms; and the way everything went with military precision or, as Else Schwamm said with approval, left-right, left-right, one-two, one-two.

The Rawul called Michael and me into the drawing room for what he said was a talk but appeared to be in the nature of an audience. Everything around the Rawul was taking on more formality; I guess it had to be so, to impress the people
who came to see him. One follower was stationed outside the drawing room to announce the visitor and another to usher him inside. This procedure was followed even for Michael and me, who lived in the house (and, for that matter, whose house it was). We hadn't been in the drawing room for some time—there was usually some high-level meeting going on in there—and we were surprised by its transformation. In Lindsay's parents' time, the furniture had become shabby, giving the room a comfortable, lived-in feel. Now everything had been refurbished with brocade upholstery, the mahogany and brass had been polished, as had the floor, and my grandparents' ordinary carpet had been changed for an ostentatious Oriental one. The portrait of our great-great-grandfather—a kindly, shrewd trader in a high stock and collar (very different from Lindsay's grandfather, featured as a Renaissance prince over the dining-room sideboard)—had been replaced by one of the Rawul, looking as Orientally colorful as the new carpet.

But the Rawul himself, an impressive, portly figure standing underneath himself in oil, received us more like a father than a political leader or king. And it was with a father's concern that he spoke to us of the future—that is, of his future plans, which he took for granted were ours too. These were long-term and involved a good deal of traveling. He said that with a worldwide movement such as his, it was necessary to plan not months but years ahead. The problem was one of organization, he said: Arrangements had to be made for travel and accommodation, participants notified—no, he didn't want to burden us with too much detail, but if we would care to glance over the schedule compiled for the next three years? Michael said he had seen it—had in fact helped to photocopy it—so it was handed to me, and I saw that the program involved a general meeting followed by a training course in England, the next year a refresher course in India, after that a summer camp at the house on the Island, and in the succeeding fall a series of lectures at Propinquity. Well, said the Rawul, taking the program from me before I had quite finished reading it, there was no need for us to break our young heads over these organizational problems, but he did want to mention that he was thinking along lines of a
general transfer to the movement of both Propinquity and the house on the Island, along with some other assets to keep up these properties. Again he apologized—he said we must be sick and tired of lawyers, but it would perhaps be advisable for all concerned to have some sort of signed legalized document before the scheduled meetings on the Island and at Propinquity: It would also, he said, be helpful in solving visa problems for himself and other foreign participants if the association could show financial assets in the U.S. Michael nodded—he seemed fully aware of the problem; but the Rawul wasn't asking for our consent—what he wanted, he said, was to do everything he possibly could for us at this difficult stage of our lives, with Grandfather gone and all our new responsibilities to carry. He wanted us to feel that he was there for us at any time and for any problem, if there was anything whatsoever he could do—“Michael?” he said. “Harriet?” He looked at us both, beamed on us, and then he did something very warm and caring—he put his arms around both our necks to draw us to him and laid our heads against his chest. Even Michael, who so hated being touched, accepted this gesture and let his head rest for a moment on the Rawul's silk coat. He made us feel like orphans who had found a father—not strictly correct, since Manton was still there and so was Lindsay, though perhaps in a parental role the Rawul was right to discount them.

That same day I was surprised to be summoned by the Rani as well. She received me—that is the word, received—in the small and very sunny little room that had been done up as her sitting room. It was as much a sun parlor as anything, and had new wicker furniture and apricot cushions with huge flowers on them, amid which the Rani bloomed as the most opulent flower of all. She patted a footstool close to her chair and said that we had to have a chat. Like the Rawul, she beamed on me, and I expected her to make the same offer of parental protection. But what she said was something quite different. It stunned me, and when I stared at her, she repeated it and smiled and emphasized: “He really wants to, you know.” What she had said was that Crishi wanted to marry me.

“He came to my bedroom in the middle of the night,” she
reminisced, still smiling. “He woke me up—I said ‘Crishi, is this the time to talk, darling,' and he said ‘Rani, I
have
to.' So I knew it was serious.”