Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

man's feet and, as he performed this rite, the old man gently stroked Ghompal's head.

«You are one of the sons of light», said the old man, lifting Ghompal's head back and looking into his eyes with a steady clear gaze. Ghompal returned the old man's gaze with the same clear liquescent light. They seemed to flood each other's being—two reservoirs of liquid light spilling over in a purifying exchange. Suddenly I realized that the blinding light which streamed from the unshaded electric bulbs was as nothing in comparison to this emanation of light which had passed between the two. Perhaps the old man was unaware of this yellow, artificial light which man had invented; perhaps the room was illuminated by this flood-light which came from his soul. Even now, though they had ceased gazing into one another's eyes, the room was appreciably lighter than before. It was like the after-glow of a fiery sunset, a supernal, empyrean luminosity.

I stole back to the living room to await Ghompal. He had something to tell me. I found Kronski seated in the arm-chair reading one of my books. He was ostensibly calmer, quieter than usual, not subdued but settled in some queer, undisciplined way.

«Hullo! I didn't know you were home,» he said, startled by my unexpected presence. «I was just glancing at some of your junk.» He threw the book aside. It was The Hill of Dreams.

Before he had a chance to resume his habitual banter Ghompal entered. He walked towards me holding the money in his hand. I took it with a smile, thanked him, and put it in my pocket. To Kronski it appeared that I was borrowing from Ghompal. He was irritated—more than that— indignant.

«Jesus, do you have to borrow from him?» he blurted out.

Ghompal spoke up at once, but Kronski cut him short.

«You don't have to lie for him. I know his tricks.»

Ghompal spoke up again, quietly, convincingly. «Mr. Miller doesn't play tricks with me,» he said.

«All right, you win,» said Kronski. «But Jesus, don't make an angel of him. I know he's been good to you— and to all your comrades on the messenger force—but that's not because he has a good heart-He's taken a fancy to you Hindus because you're queer fish, see?»

Ghompal smiled at him indulgently, as if he understood the aberrations of a sick mind.

Kronski reacted testily to this smile of Ghompal's. «Don't give me that commiserating smile,» he screeched. «I'm not a wretched outcast. I'm a doctor of medicine. I'm a...»

«You're still a child,» said Ghompal quietly and firmly. «Anybody with a little intelligence can become a doctor...»

At this Kronski sneered vehemently. «They can, eh? Just like that, hah? Just like rolling off a log—» He looked around as if searching for a place to spit.

«In India we say...», and Ghompal began one of those child-like stories which are devastating to the analytical-minded person. He had a little story for every situation, Ghompal. I relished them hugely; they were like simple, homeopathic remedies, little pellets of truth garbed in some innocuous cloak. You could never forget them afterwards, that was what I liked about these yarns. We write fat books to expound a simple idea; the Oriental tells a simple, pointed story which lodges in your brain like a diamond. The story he was narrating was about a glow-worm that had been bruised by the naked foot of an absent-minded philosopher. Kronski detested anecdotes in which lower forms of life communicated with higher beings, such as man, on an intellectual level. He felt it to be a personal humiliation, an invidious aspersion.

In spite of himself he had to smile at the conclusion of the tale. Besides, he was already repentant of his crude behavior. He had a profound respect for Ghompal. It nettled him that he had been obliged to turn sharply on Ghompal when he meant merely to crush me. So, still smiling, he inquired in a kindly voice about Ghose, one of the Hindus who had returned to India some months ago.

Ghose had died of dysentery shortly after arriving in India, Ghompal informed him.

«That's lousy,» said Kronski, shaking his head despairingly, as if to imply that it was hopeless to combat conditions in a country like India. Then, turning to me, with a sad flicker of a smile: «You remember Ghose, don't you? The fat, chubby little guy, like a squatting Buddha.»

I nodded. «I should say I do remember him. Didn't I raise the money for him to go back to India?»

«Ghose was a saint,» said Kronski vehemently.

A mild flicker of a frown came over Ghompal's face. «No, not a saint,» he said. «We have many men in India who...»

«I know what you're going to say,» Kronski broke in. «Just the same, to me Ghose was a saint. Dysentery! Good Christ! it's like the Middle Ages-worse than that!» And he launched into a terrifying description of the diseases which still flourished in India. And from disease to poverty and from poverty to superstition and from these to slavery, degradation, despair, indifference, hopelessness. India was just a vast, rotting sepulchre, a charnel house dominated by conniving British exploiters in league with demented and perfidious rajahs and maharajahs. Not a word about the architecture, the music, the learning, the religion, the philosophies, the beautiful physionomies, the grace and delicacy of the women, the colorful garments, the pungent odors, the tinkling bells, the great gongs, the gorgeous landscapes, the riot of flowers, the incessant processions, the clash of tongues, races, types, the fermentation and pullulation amidst death and corruption. Statistically correct as always, he succeeded only in presenting the negative half of the picture. India was bleeding to death, true. But the part of her that was alive was resplendent in a way that Kronski could never appreciate. He never once mentioned a city by name, never differentiated between Agra and Delhi, Lahore and Mysore, Darjeeling and Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, Benares and Colombo. Parsee, Jain, Hindu, Buddhist—they were all one, all miserable victims of oppression, all rotting slowly under a murderous sun to make an imperialist holiday.

Between him and Ghompal there now ensued a discussion to which I only half listened. Each time I heard the name of a city I went on an emotional jag. The very mention of such words as Bengal, Gujurati, Malabar Coast, Kali-ghat, Nepal, Kashmir, Sikh, Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads, raga, stupa, pravritti, sudra, paranirvana, chela, guru, Hounaman, Siva was sufficient to put me in a trance for the rest of the evening. How could a man condemned to lead the restricted life of a physician in a cold, brutal city like New York dare to talk about setting in order a continent of half a billion souls whose problems were so vast, so multiform, as to stagger the imagination of India's own great pundits? No wonder he was attracted to the saintly characters whom he had made contact with in the infernal regions of the most Cosmococcic Corporation of America. These «boys», as Ghompal called them (they ranged from twenty-three to thirty-five years of age) were like picked warriors, like chosen disciples. The hardships they had endured, first in getting to America, then struggling to keep body and soul together while finishing their studies, then finding the means to return, then renouncing everything in order to devote themselves to the advancement of their people— well, no American, no white American, any way, could brag of anything comparable. When now and then one of these «boys» went astray, became the lap-dog of some society woman or the slave of some ravishing dancer, I felt like rejoicing. It did me good to hear of Hindu boy lolling on soft cushions, eating rich foods, wearing diamond rings, dancing at night clubs, driving cars, seducing young virgins, and so on. I recalled a cultured young Parsee who had run off with some languorous middle-aged woman of dubious reputation; I remembered the malicious stories that were spread about him, the demoralization that he brought about among the less disciplined ones. It was grand. I followed his career with avidity, lapping up the dregs, imaginatively, as he moved from sphere to sphere. And then one day, when I was lying ill in the morgue which my wife had made of my room, he came to see me, bringing flowers and fruit and books, and he sat by my bed and held my hand, talked to me of India, of the wondrous life he had known as a child, of the miseries he had endured subsequently, of the humiliations inflicted upon him by Americans, of his hunger for life, a large life, a rich life, a splendorous life, and how he had grabbed the opportunity when it came and found it empty, empty of everything but clothes, jewels, money, women. He was giving it all up, he confided. He would go back to his people, suffer with them, raise them up if he could, and if not, die with them, die as they died, in the street, naked, homeless, shunned, despised, stepped on, walked over, spat upon, a bundle of bones which even the vultures would find it difficult to feast on. He would do this not out of guilt, remorse or repentance but because India in rags, India festering like a maggot, India starving, India writhing under the heel of the conqueror, meant more to him than all the comforts, opportunities and advantages of a heartless country like America. He was a Parsee, I say, and his family had been rich once; he had known a happy childhood at least. But there were other Hindus who had been reared in forest and field, who had lived what to us would seem an animal existence. How these obscure, shy individuals ever surmounted the stupendous obstacles which confronted them from day to day remains a mystery to me to this day. With them, at any rate, I travelled the roads that lead from village to town and town to city; with them I listened to the songs of simple folk, the tales of elderly men, the prayers of the devout, the admonitions of the gurus, the legends of the