Garbo’s Faces

a Novel — Part 29: Madhuri

In July of 1985, Madhuri called and asked me to come as soon as I could. I will be going soon, she said; and I asked no further questions, just packed my things, left word at the office, and flew home. Yes, for the first time, I felt as if I were going home.

She met me at the door and I had to stop myself from drawing a quick breath of dismay when I saw her. It was almost as if she had shrunk in height as well as in substance.

No, she said, it was not cancer. No, something else. Just the wish to end this chapter, she said.

“How long?” I asked

“Days, weeks,” she said.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

I brought my luggage to my room, still as clean and taken care of as ever. The sheets and blankets smelled fresh with air. She had washed them recently. I heard her prepare tea in the kitchen, when I was suddenly struck with the moment: I had come to say farewell to her. I could not keep my eyes from welling up, and I stood still for a long time, trying to find my footing, trying to wrestle my emotions down, or at least out of sight, before returning to the kitchen. I turned. Only to see her at my door, watching me silently.

“It’s not a sad thing,” she said.

“It is for me,” I answered.

“It happens,” she said matter-of-factly. “It happens.”

“Yes, I know.” I said and quickly dabbed my eyes with my hands.

“I have tea ready,” she said.

We sat down by a corner of the Acre. She eased herself onto her chair, and I could see her not quite not flinch as the effort must have caused her pain, no matter what she said.

“It does hurt,” I said.

“A little, maybe,” she answered.

I served us. As I replaced the pot on its little wrought iron stand, I caught sight of her hands, which now appeared skeletal, draped by translucent skin. It was as if they were simply disappearing: as if she were evaporating.

“What do the doctors say?” I asked, unable to think, really. The question was almost some kind of recording held in reserve for moments like this.

“Why should I bother them?” she asked in return. “It is just an old woman’s time, that’s all. It’s not as if I have any desire to be kept alive, were it an option.”

Now, you have to believe me when I say that this: this very moment, facing my grandmother across the Acre, on my farewell visit, was the first time I really reflected upon her age, and it was her own words that spawned the question. It was July of 1985 and I was now fifty-seven years old. The woman on the other side of the Acre was my grandmother. Grandmother. I had always thought of her so much as my mother that I never stopped to reflect. A mother, yes, a mother would reach the age of farewell about now, a mother. But a grandmother would usually be long gone. So I asked.

“How old are you?”

“I am one hundred and five,” she said.

Someone was at the door. Then a head popped in, “Jiddu is calling,” it said. I looked at the head and then at the phone, disconnected from the wall as usual. “He’ll call back soon.”

“Thank you,” said Madhuri.

“Thank you,” said I.

The head, which I didn’t recognize, withdrew and I walked over and plugged the telephone into the wall socket.

I had barely returned to the table when the phone rang again. I answered.

“How is she,” said my father without preamble. A demand.

“Frail,” I said.

Then a short pause as my voice struck some sort of chord. “Who is this,” he said.

“Nachiketa,” I answered.

He didn’t answer for several more seconds. “Nachiketa,” he repeated. “How are you?”

“I am fine,” I said. “Should you not be here?”

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am forbidden to travel.”

“Forbidden by whom?”

“My doctors.”

“You are not well?”

“Frail,” he said.

I was not sure whether he meant to mimic my earlier response or not. I was seldom sure what he meant, besides we spoke so seldom. I didn’t know what to answer, so I said nothing. The line, as usual, crackled and hissed. He sounded far away. Probably in Ojai, California, where he spent most of his time now.

“I am glad you are there,” he said at length.

“Do you want to talk to her?” I asked.

“Yes, please,” he said.

I covered the mouthpiece and said to Madhuri, “It’s Jiddu.”

She nodded and rose slowly. She brought her chair with her, eased herself onto it again and held out her hand. I gave her the receiver and she spoke with her son.

It was a short conversation that ended with: “Goodbye.”

She handed the receiver back to me, and returned to the table. All in slow but graceful movements. Again, it appeared to pain her to move, but her faced showed nothing, or tried not to.

“He will follow soon,” she said.

“He is ill,” I said. Part question.

“Yes,” she said. “He cannot travel.”

“That’s what he told me too,” I said.

She reached for the teapot, but I took it before she could, and I refilled our cups.

“I was born in 1880,” she said. “At least according to my mother, and later according to Jiddu, who made it a point to find out for me.”

I replaced the teacup and looked at her. She was regarding me with steady eyes, still bright with intelligence and awareness, although moist with age.

“You married young at that time,” she went on. “My father arranged for my marriage me when I was fourteen — apparently a profitable one for all concerned — and I soon carried your father, who was born in 1895.”

I nodded.

“He was filled with light,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, although I thought I knew.

“He came through death unscathed,” she said.

When I looked up at her, my face a question, she added, “You know that many things can happen between death and birth. Many things. Most of them unpleasant, and most of them seeding the great forgetting.”

I did not answer, but she had all of my attention, which must have been quite apparent to her.

“Jiddu passed quickly from his previous life to this. Nothing happened to him in-between. He was born quite aware of who he had been and who he was.”

“He never told me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Nachiketa. Poor Nachiketa. You were nearly as great a burden to your father as to your mother. Although he did not disown you like she did, he disowned you in another way.”

“How?” I said.

“He once told me,” she said, “that he was as much your father as you were your body. He believed, and still believes I’m sure, that each child is himself, and is fully responsible for himself, and is not the product of his parents. Which,” she added, “is true, of course.”

I nodded again, although not entirely sure that I agreed. I had not given these things much thought of late. While Jiddu had a large and worldwide following by now, he had never managed to, or even tried to, convert his son, and I, for my part, was quite happy with this lack of paternal attention. I had my buildings and my books and my memories. And I had my tiger’s eye. Still in my pocket after all these years.

“No, Nachiketa,” she said — as if reading my doubts — and reached across the table for my hand, which I gave her. She took it and then brought her other hand over to cover mine. I felt as if my hand was immersed in cloud. The feeling almost made me laugh.

“No, Nachiketa,” she said again, “It is true. You should know that. You have met Esh and you have spoken to Trolls and you know Attra. Of course it is true.”

“Of course,” I said before I believed it.

“Don’t you patronize me,” she said, with an edge, and I immediately realized my mistake. She was focused on me, and saw through me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Think before you talk. There is time to. There is always time to.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Perhaps,” she suggested, “you’ve been swallowed by London and by your buildings as your mother has been swallowed by her own myth. As your father has been swallowed by far too much thinking.”

I didn’t understand and said so.

“I am about to leave,” she said. “And I am a little happy. And I am a little afraid. But I am facing it with open eyes. You have spent your life in London. Jiddu has spent his life hopping round the world like a cricket, never resting, always talking, always thinking, always complicating things. You haven’t complicated things enough.”

She saw that I still did not follow. She still held my hand in hers. They were cool and warm at the same time. Light but filled with touch.

“When I leave, these will cease.” She squeezed my hand in hers to indicate that she meant her hands. “My lungs will stop breathing, and the eyes you see now will stop seeing you. I will no longer occupy this head, I will no longer look out these doors.”

I realized she meant her eyes, and nodded. Yes, I understood.

“All this will crumble and return to the Earth.” She paused, but did not let go of my hand. “This,” another light squeeze, “is not me. Not at all.”

“Attra,” I said, remembering his visit when he left Harriet in New York, and wondering how I could have forgotten. Madhuri, who seemed to know exactly what I meant by my one-word reply, nodded and smiled.

“Yes, like Attra.”

“I have thought about these things,” I said, “but not so much recently. One forgets. One works and reads and designs buildings, and one forgets.”

“Yes, one does,” she said.

I scrutinized her quickly and saw that she was not making fun of me and my strange choice of pronoun. “I’ve been busy living,” I said, and it sounded so much like an excuse that I had to smile.

“Time perhaps,” she said, “to get busy dying.”

When I said nothing, she went on, but not before letting go of my hand and pouring us more tea, remarking, much to herself, that it was probably cold by now.

“I am an old woman, and I have had a lot of time on my hands. I am also a lucky old woman, for Jiddu has always made sure that I’ve never wanted for anything, and so have you, Nachiketa.”

She patted my hand, but did not take it again.

“I have had many years to think about this life, and why we live it, and I have come to the conclusion that we live it in order to learn how to die. From the moment we are born, we should study the art of dying.

“Your father, I believe, was lucky. At least that’s what he told me once. ‘I don’t remember studying or meditating or speculating or much of anything of the sort during my last life,’ he once told me. ‘I simply grew old and died and found you and the boy you had then carried to term. When you gave birth, I stepped into it, that little boy, and that was that,’ he said, and laughed.”

“Why lucky?” I asked.

“I think, and so does Jiddu, there is a great labyrinth awaiting us on the other side of this door,” she said. “When we die, when we leave our bodies, I think we must enter this labyrinth and then suffer whatever consequences that follow.”

“And Jiddu?”

“Jiddu never entered it. Either by skill and design, which he denies, or they simply forgot about him.”

“They?”

“Yes, that’s what he said once.”

“Like guards? By the labyrinth?”

“Guards, yes, perhaps. But not to keep people from entering. Guards to make sure they do.” Then she stood up, slowly. “Let me make some more tea.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “You stay.”

“Too late,” she answered. “I’m already up.”

She brewed us some more tea and I watched her move by the stove. Slowly, and I am sure with some pain, but with the certainty of motion that comes with many years of repetition. It was like a dance, precise but slowed. She did not look back. Once she began it, the dance took over and ran its course. When done, she brought the pot back to the Acre and sat down. Again, with an effort.

“It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Do I complain?”

“So it hurts.”

“A little.”

“Are you getting any medication, for the pain?”

“I am convinced that this is a time you need to be awake, all here. Not shackled by morphine. I am willing to pay whatever price.”

Although her words arrived quietly, they came one by one and with a fierce determination. Madhuri, I realized, intended to die properly.

We finished the tea. I had a few biscuits to go along with it, and once we were done, the journey caught up with me and I was overcome with sleep. Still I fought to stay awake: the last thing I wanted was to have something happen to Madhuri while I was sleeping.

She noticed my drooping eyelids, my slumping forward onto my elbows, and, all brightness, she drew the correct conclusion.

“Don’t worry, Nachiketa,” she said. “I won’t go anywhere. Please go to sleep now. I will rest too, and then, in the morning we’ll talk some more.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, unnecessarily.

“Yes,” she said.

I believe I managed to undress and get in between the sheets before I fell asleep, but barely. I slept deeply and well. Glad to be home, and breathing familiar air, my body rested well.

The weight on my chest threw me back about half a century. I was sleeping on my back, as I am wont to do, when, rising to the surface, I gradually grew aware of the curled heaviness that made me strain a little for air. I came all the way to and opened my eyes to meet the yellow and curious ones of an all-black cobra head.

“Attra,” I said in snake talk, certain.

“I thought you would sleep forever,” he said.

“You’re heavy.”

“A little bigger this time. Stronger,” he added.

Then I remembered why I was here. “Madhuri?” I asked.

“She’s still asleep. She is fine,” he said.

“You know she is leaving?”

“Yes.”

I shifted a little to ease the pressure on my lungs. He was definitely heavier than he used to be. He noticed my little struggle and slid halfway down my sides, redistributing himself to ease my breathing. “Thanks,” I said.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure I would see you again.”

“I have been with Esh,” he said.

A strange thought surfaced, and it slipped out before I could catch it. “Are you sure,” I said, “that you are not Esh?”

Attra laughed at that, quite amused. “Oh, yes, perfectly.”

I knew his answer to be true.

“But I’m flattered,” he added.

“It was just a thought,” I said. “How is he?”

“As silvery and as gray as ever, and older still.”

“How old, now?”

“Very.”

I did not ask further. “And Athansor?”

“He is older too.”

“Who rides him now?”

“No one has ridden Athansor for many years,” he said.

A movement by the door made us both look in that direction.

“Ah,” said Madhuri, “You’ve come.”

“Yes,” said Attra, and slid down from my chest — much to the delight of my lungs, which suddenly almost bounced with air.

“Esh would have come too,” he said, “but we would not let him. He is quite frail.”

Esh, Madhuri, Jiddu, all frail, I thought. And probably Harriet too.

“How is he?” she wanted to know.

“Preparing as well,” Attra said.

“Same as me,” she answered.

“Same as you.”

Madhuri moved for the kitchen and Attra followed. I got out of bed and made ready for the day.

When I arrived in the kitchen, I found Madhuri in the midst of making my favorite breakfast: wonderful crispy dosas filled with a sweet chutney. I knew she must have spent quite some time earlier preparing the batter — as always, grinding the rice and dhal by hand, which took time — because she was by now frying them and the kitchen was filling with the familiar smell. I had offered once, a few years back, to buy her an electric grinder for the chore, but she had just scoffed at the idea, mumbling something about laziness.

Suddenly I was struck with grief as it dawned on me that this was the last meal she would cook for me. She heard me coming and turned around to see my face, the kitchen swimming in my eyes.

She noticed, I’m sure, but made no comment. Instead she returned to her chore: frying dosas is not a simple task, you need to pay attention. She would deal with me later, her back told me, while she worked her tawa, her sharpest spatula, and the batter with precise and practices movements.

“Sit, Nachiketa,” she said without looking back.

I looked around, but did not see Attra.

“Where did Attra go?” I said.

“He will be back,” she answered. “Sit, please. Your breakfast is almost ready.”

I sat down and watched her pour the thick, fermented batter in a small spiral from center to edge, hand steady, attention sharp. I heard the batter sizzle in the oil and knew that the edges would be as crisp as ever. She knew they were my favorite part and made sure, as always. Again, tears blurred my vision and I wiped my eyes with my shirt sleeve.

Then the first dosa arrived.

“Eat,” she said, like she always said. That simple word. And a long parade of mornings, waiting for her to serve me dosas, crowded me and it was time for my shirt sleeve again.

I found her looking at me curiously, not smiling, but with affection. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she said. “Really. Eat.”

And I did, savoring every bite despite the sadness beneath, the loss to come. She said nothing, simply served me and watched me eat.

“You’re not eating?” I said, well in to my second dosa.

She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

She prepared my third, spreading the chutney in a thick sheet, then folding it. “Here.”

Then she straightened, slowly and again with difficulty. Without a word, she left the kitchen but returned shortly. “Be sure to return this to her,” she said and placed the necklace on the table between us.

At first I did not recognize it. No, that’s not right, I did recognize it, but I could not reconcile it with the surroundings. It simply should not be there. It glittered and almost looked like it was breathing.

“This is her present,” I said finally.

“I know,” Madhuri answered.

“Why?” I said. “How?”

Madhuri took a deep breath. “I know how, but I’m not sure why,” she said.

When I said nothing, still staring at the gift the troll queen had hung around Harriet’s neck, she said, “I found it in my pocket when I returned from New York.”

“But,” I said, “that was more than…, God,” I had to think, “That was twenty and some years ago.”

She nodded.

“You never told me.”

“Nor her,” she said.

“Why?”

“Why?” she repeated, “Well, that is the question, isn’t it?” She looked a little uncomfortable, but I knew from her face that she had settled that question to her satisfaction a long time ago. “It didn’t want me to,” she said.

Before I spoke, I recalled Harriet’s losing it, then finding it again when it wanted to be found, and I nodded slowly. Yes, I thought, or said, Yes, that could well be.

“That is the best way to describe it,” she added. “The only way to describe it.”

“It does have a will of its own,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And now?” I asked.

“It’s time to return it.”

“She’s never mentioned it,” I said. “Then again, we have not spoken for a long time.”

“Maybe she doesn’t even remember it,” said Madhuri.

“I think she remembers,” I said. “But I don’t think she believes her memories.”

She reached for it and held it up to the light. “I think you’re right,” she said. “She never did believe. She knew but didn’t know.” Then, after a few still breaths, added, “She never allowed herself to believe.”

She returned the necklace to the table, slowly, letting the colors mix and flash as the sunlight struck it. “This necklace is older than you can imagine,” she said. “They made it here in India, then brought it with them when they traveled north.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“I couldn’t,” she answered. “Esh told me.”

I waited for more, but she didn’t elaborate. Then I looked at the necklace again, still swirling in the sun, happy, it seemed, at the prospect of seeing Harriet again, or to see me again, it was hard to tell. All these years, I thought. All these years, and she had said nothing about missing it. Maybe it had never been quite real to her. Perhaps none of it had stayed real for her.

I patted my pocket, as I often did, to feel my tiger’s-eye pat me back, and there it was, reminding me that yes, indeed, as always: it all had happened. All was true. My private reassurance that there is so much more. So much more.

And then Esh arrived.

There was no way of telling it was Esh at first. What arrived, or who arrived, was Lord Krishna. That was my first impression, and I’ve learned to go with them, my first impressions. What arrives unbidden and uncensored is usually right, and this was unusually right.

My second impression was that Jiddu had come to sit at the table, but a younger Jiddu, in his mid-twenties, but it wasn’t Jiddu.

While the hair and skin spoke of him, the features and the eyes spoke of Lord Krishna. And Jiddu had never met Attra and Attra would never consent to be held by anyone he didn’t know and respect.

My third impression was that the necklace’s rightful owner had come to claim it, for if the necklace had seemed happy to see me, or at the thought of seeing Harriet, it was downright delighted at seeing our guest.

It was only when he spoke that I recognized him as Esh.

But then again, hadn’t Madhuri implied, or said outright, that Esh was Athansor was Krishna? I seemed to remember that.

There was a fourth impression, but it was quickly dispelled by Esh himself. It was less an impression than a brief revulsion: at myself, at my life to that point. It was as if a sudden comparison was forced upon me: a life in the light versus a life in London. Held up for inspection: my life, what it could have been, perhaps should have been, and what in fact it had been. This fourth impression was so strong that I nearly acted upon it and removed myself as not worthy. That’s when Esh dispelled it.

“It has served a purpose,” he said.

Madhuri looked a little puzzled at these words, not knowing that they were meant for me, but when she saw me smile, I think she understood.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’ve done well,” he said, “circuitously.”

“Circuitously,” I repeated. “Yes, that’s a fitting word.”

I glanced back at over fifty years of stumbling through life putting bricks together, when I could have…, when I could have what? I always wanted to build things. And was not architecture revered even in the Mahabharata? Was I so terribly wrong?

“Circuitously,” said Esh again, “but right. For you.”

I saw him watch my images rise as I thought them and realized I was the one raising them. And at that moment, for that one moment, I gained the power to not think them, to not raise them. To dispel all images, all thought. They all left, and in their wake left an amazing stillness. Not stillness as absence of motion, but a stillness being stillness, a thing real unto its own. I felt like a calm forest lake, deep and cool, reflecting the world, or able to, but for now reflecting nothing, just water, clear and deep and still.

Krishna smiled. It must have been his doing.

“Are you ready?” he asked, I’m not sure of whom. Madhuri said yes, without hesitation, and I said yes, with hesitation, because I did not know what I was ready for.

That question was only meant for my grandmother, however, who now performed a curious dance. She doused the fire in the stove, cleared the table, washed my plate, the tawa, the spatula, and the batter bowl. Then she came over and kissed my eyes and my forehead without a word: no words were needed. It was as if she, the real Madhuri, took a short swim in the lake that was me, and I knew this was goodbye. She spoke to Attra, who slid down from Krishna’s knee to follow her.

Then, without looking back, she left the kitchen for her room, where they found her body the same evening, smiling still.

I rose to follow as well, but Esh lifted his hand to bid me remain, saying with two fingers held softly together that I need not worry, Attra would accompany her. She would be just fine.

Accompany her?

Yes.

He then reached for the necklace on the table, which almost jumped into his hand, shining now with its own light at being home again. No, there had been no almost about that, it did jump.

He then handed me the sparkling joy, which seemed not a little disappointed at changing hands to mine. I smiled when I didn’t feel offended by this although I should have been, would have been, had I been anything but deep, still water.

“Give this back to her,” he said. “She does not know it, but she is still looking for this.”

“Why did it leave her?” I wanted to know.

“She was not ready for it,” he answered.

“And she is ready now?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I believe she is.”

Krishna then became Athansor and beckoned me to mount. I took a last look at the kitchen, at the door to the hallway leading to my room, and Madhuri’s. I took one final look at the life I had led as a child, then I put the necklace in my pocket and pulled myself up onto the large white back.

Three steps saw us leave the kitchen and Madhuri’s house, and not so many more saw us enter the sloping meadow of the Swiss summer. Athansor stopped by an old wooden gate and looked in the direction of the village below. About fifty yards down a path, on a small bench, dressed for autumn in the summer warmth, sat my mother, alone and quite desolate.

I slipped off of his back and down to the green and fragrant ground. Athansor looked at me, but said nothing, then trotted off down the meadow, tail whisking happily behind him, and then he was gone. I walked over to where she sat.

© Wolfstuff