away everything I have.’
It was past midnight, and they had hardly marked the hours slipping by. When they went out by the balcony to the garden stairs, the stars were lacquered in thick coruscations over the velvet Delhi sky, and there was the shimmer and purity of frost in the air. One by one, a procession massed reverently about Anjli asleep on her father’s shoulder, they went down the white steps, and issued with shadows for sails upon the white, paved ocean of the patio.
‘At this same hour, I think,’ said Satyavan, whispering over his daughter’s head, ‘I got up in Rabindar Nagar, and found, like the Lord Buddha himself, that the gods had filled the universe with the thought that it was time to go forth.’
‘Where?’ asked Dominic, hypnotised.
‘That is of secondary importance. What matters is to leave what has always been, and look for what has never been yet. I had had riches and marriage and a child, and I had nothing. Nothing is not enough for any man. The only answer is to abandon that nothing, and go in search of something. A different kind of treasure, perhaps. A different kind of salvation. Perhaps not salvation at all, only the loss of oneself.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘My cousin – you hardly know him – he is a good fellow, he will enjoy living in my mother’s house and managing my mother’s companies. He will make money, but not want to keep it. As for me, in the past year I have become half a soil scientist and half a stock-breeder. What this Rahula of mine will become I cannot yet guess. I told you, she is encouraging me to put everything I have into the missions. Nobody knows yet what
‘No – you’ve only just discovered each other —’
‘We have a lifetime,’ said Satyavan, breathing in the night, ‘and you have return tickets valid for weeks yet. When does your new term begin?’
‘Come,’ said the Swami, waiting by the door of the Rolls, ‘would you like me to drive you?’
Just now the stars must be nesting in the niches of the magic towers at the Jantar Mantar, like doves coming home to their cotes.
‘Good night!’ whispered Malenkar, holding the door of their car for his wife.
‘Good bye! ’ breathed Kamala. ‘ Ashok, can we give you a lift?’
‘I’ll send you a recording of the music,’ promised Ashok, and touched the butterfly ribbon of Anjli’s plait as her father lifted her gently into the Rolls, among the grain-sacks and the experimental feed. She breathed lightly and long, smiling on his shoulder. She had everything in the world she wanted, and she was never going to look back.
‘Tomorrow… ten o’clock!’ whispered Satyavan.
The Malenkar Mercedes drew away first, the lofty Rolls proceeding majestically after. The two of them were left alone in the silence bone-white with moonight. The unuttered notes floated silently across the pale space and nested in the tall hedge behind which the cars had vanished.
‘Raga Aheer Bhairab,’ said Tossa in the softest of undertones. ‘To be played in the early hours of the morning…’
‘… when the guests are departing…’
—«»—«»—«»—
[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]
[A 3S Release— v1, html]
[July 28, 2007]
