By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin

The Acacia Forest

I took the northern track by chance, but today I know that there is no chance. I was not going anywhere special, simply towards the Rock of Kali. I was happy or almost, it was a kind of happiness which had grown in me imperceptibly and did not really depend on anything, needed nothing in order to exist: it was a simple clarity, it was the clear bed-rock of existence; I was light, tranquil and as if borne by the wind; but the slightest thought made a shadow—it was an instantaneous shadow—and no sooner did anyone think of me than I felt the vibration: it came and touched me, made little ripples and eddies, or sometimes streams of sudden tenderness like stepping into a bush of honeysuckle. And now it was Björn who came whirling into me. In fact, I had gone out to get rid of him: “I am doubling the dose”... His voice buzzed in the heat, “and so, you see, I have held out for forty minutes!” It was Björn standing on his head in his monk-cell, Björn sitting for hours during the night, meditating—on what?... “I'll go right through to the end”—of what? Perhaps it was necessary to go right through to the end of the effort, to the other side: the effort was yet another shadow on that clarity. And I wondered what one could do for Björn. Sometimes it seems to me that human beings have something to exhaust and once exhausted, everything is there.

I turned to the right without knowing why, perhaps to find shade, and I entered the acacia forest. I wanted to drive Björn away, to walk, but he stayed there, he stuck. One could hear the silvery jingle of the little horse carts far away, the cry of the cart-drivers in the south; then everything faded away around me, there was nothing but that ochre-coloured sand almost burning under my feet and the dales of thorn bushes relieved by an occasional banyan tree. Not a breath of air. It was a motionless density of odours like a bath of wild honey: it was so dense that the silence itself seemed made up of coagulated odours; then the lacy shadows of the trees, the endless undulating sand like a surge of coral under the wide, slanting parasols. I walked at random, the sand was very soft, the sky was like an immense, shredded blue net; sometimes, little yellow clusters flowered suddenly straight out from the spiky branches. I plunged deeper and deeper into those scented ochre dales, a little lost as on the frontier of a dream, but vaguely troubled, drawn by I knew not what. A tiny lizard fled into the thorny thicket. And suddenly, it was no longer clear.

It was heavy, threatening.

I wanted to turn back. Something oppressed me, pushed me, I didn't know what, like a breath with a will in it... I swerved to the right, skirted the huge banyan tree which rose solitarily in the midst of the acacias; how beautiful was that tree, with its dishevelled roots like the rigging of a vessel in distress. I took one more step... And then, suddenly, I stopped dead, aghast. I heard a cry.

I never understood what happened: that girl was lying on the ground, half naked, her breasts tanned almost black, and then Björn at her side.

I only heard that cry. Then the sand yawned under me. I should have gone, run away—but I was paralysed. She yelled again. Then she pushed Björn away, caught hold of her sari—a bright yellow sari; in one bound, she was on her feet. Björn turned towards me.
She fled through the acacia forest hugging her garments to her... It was Nisha, Meenakshi's daughter.

Björn sat up, he looked at me calmly. I must have slipped down on my knees, my legs folding under me. He leaned back against the banyan and looked at me without speaking. There was that smell of alcohol round him. Then he slowly took out his knife; he took it by the blade and in a single movement he threw it at me.

The knife planted itself straight in the sand, twenty centimetres from me.

He burst out laughing.

A Homeric laugh, hideous, full-throated—the whole forest resounded with his laugh.

—What about!

I was stunned. I looked at Björn. That stranger Björn, a great bare-bodied hirsute Northerner, laughing as if he were about to give up his soul, and then that knife in front of me.

—You were jolly scared, heirs, admit it!

He laughed some more:

—You have arrived just for the end of the marriage.

He laughed and laughed as if he had never had so much fun in his life.

—We shall have a lot of little children, all black, and you will be the godfather of the first!

He raised a finger in the air.

—Wait, we'll drink to that.

He caught hold of a bottle of toddy behind him.

—Here, drink.

I took the bottle. I could no longer see clearly, I was in a sort of scarlet bath in which that half-naked girl was floating—suddenly, I had entered a world of rape and terror.

—Drink, I say! You're going to drink or I'll break your jaw.

I swallowed a bumper. It smelled of grass. I was floundering in a nightmare, I was someone else, I was coming back from I knew not where, a lost life—an instant change, the yawning of a secret dungeon. And it was that.

—Not bad for a beginner. Ah! I am going to ruin your saintliness! Nil...

He took back the bottle.

—What about! What about!... What a drinking bout, I am waking up after twenty years of sleep, feeling hungry!... In fact, what are you doing here, hein? You were spying on me?

—...

—All right, all right. I don't care. I don't care about anything, it's marvellous—in short, it's liberation, an upside-down liberation... Let's drink to liberation!

He threw back his head and emptied half the bottle.

—The whole point is not to care a good goddamn about anything, one way or another. And then... Not bad, hein, Mrs. Soerensen?... Yes, seventeen years old, and her skin as fresh as a muscadine grape. First of all, I'm going to marry her, no kidding, she loves me, can you imagine that,—there's actually someone who loves me!... “You are my white Rajah.”

He laughed again.

—My white rajah!... We're going to set up housekeeping in a but at the coral fishery, and then I'm going to make a canoe, some nets and we'll go fishing. And I'll have lots of little black Björns—all black, the little Björns!... tout noirs, les petits Björn!

He sniffed with a kind of satisfaction.

I was lost, discomposed.

—And then from time to time, we'll have a little white one... who will go and seek salvation with the Christians!... Oh! Nil, what a farce!

This time he was no longer laughing. He was speaking through clenched teeth, with a sort of rictus which twisted his mouth:

—And he'll marry a little Norwegian girl who will give him very fair children who will come and be damned in the arms of a Negress... And one starts all over again.

He snatched up the bottle by the neck. I thought he was going to drink again but, with a blow of his fist, he smashed it against the tree.

—It's too long, Nil, it's unending. I must go right to the end, immediately. The end, you understand... immediately.

He wiped his lips.

—What end, hein? Do you know that, you, the clever one?

Everything became silent. The air was scorching. I bent down; in front of me there was a golden bangle in the sand, broken. It was a glass bangle.

—What end, hein?... It's already done, it's all over! I have married her already: built the hut, made the canoe, I have four bastards running wild on the beach.

He wheeled around with a sort of fury, as if he had been cheated, I saw him clench his fists. Then he yelled out:

—And th-en?

His voice resounded in the silence. There was that odour of alcohol in the hot sand, my head buzzed. A siren rent the air in the distance, far, far away in the west, as if from behind a veil.

—In four years, she will have fiat breasts and her mother's mug.

He closed his eyes.

—I'm lost, Nil.

I was the one lost; I was adrift in that red steam, with that gold bangle in my hand and the sound of the ship's siren.

—In the twinkling of an eye, it's done, the story's finished.

The siren bellowed a second time. I was imprisoned in a dreadful dream; one can no longer walk, no longer run, cry out... and the train is hurtling forward and one is going to be crushed.

—Speak! Say something.

And then that odour of black girl clung to me with a whiff of faded marigolds and rancid coconut oil. Björn came towards me crawling on all fours. He was coming to strangle me.

Then I cried out suddenly:

—Bhaskar-Nath!

—What, Bhaskar-Nath?

He straightened up, furious, I could feel his hot breath fanning my face.

—What do you mean, Bhaskar-Nath? What has he too got against me?

—Bhaskar-Nath, we must go and see Bhaskar-Nath...

He sneered:

—What, for the nuptial blessing?

—We must go, Björn, we must go, we must...

—I'm going straight to my Negress.

He got up, he fell back on the ground.

—Come, Björn.

—Guruji said no.

—Guruji...

He was drunk, I should have kept quiet; but I was angry, I saw that damn Guruji, oh! I saw them all, those little sharks of the Spirit.

—What has he done for you, your Guruji? What has he done to get out of this?

Björn became pale. He sprang up, he took hold of his knife.

—No, Björn, no...

I wanted to check his arm, it was mad, absurd, an evil-spell, I wanted to take him in my arms, raise him up, press him to my heart, Björn! He freed himself with a blow of his fist, I saw a flash; the blade slashed my left hand and severed the top of my forefinger, the blood spurted out everywhere.

Björn looked at me, dumbfounded.

There was not a sound in that forest.

—It's nothing, Björn.

He stood speechless, horror-stricken. I took his scarf, I pressed it against my hand.

—It's nothing Björn, I assure you, it's nothing.

He dropped his knife.

—Get out.

—Björn...

—Get out, I tell you.

My heart turned over, I wanted to weep, to hug him, to tell him...

—Björn, you are my brother.

—I'm not your brother, go away. I am good for nothing but destruction, that's all. That's my power, go away.

He jumped to his feet and planted himself in front of me with his hands on his hips. His eyes were terrible.

—Get out!

Then I got up. I tied the scarf round my hand, my throat felt tight like a vice.

I looked at him once more and went away into the forest.

I walked in that acacia forest without knowing where I was going, my temples throbbed, my heart pounded, I was like a shadow carried by a pain; oh! it was not Björn nor his hate—he needed to hate me as well as to love—nor the smarting of my hand; it was that sudden abyss before that black girl, her cry, that frightened look, that flight; a whole world surging up again from I knew not where with an odour of panic; all at once I was faced with the fact: it was that—what? what fact? It had no name, no face, it was not even that black sex; it was just that trap-door opening up under my feet, that swarming of shadows which rose, and then the flight, the flight, that cry, the great black sluice-gates which opened as if I had plunged there, drowned there many times, lost body and soul in an odour of sand and decaying flowers—but what? I don't know, it was “that”. This was the second when I touched “that”, the ancient cursed thing that one drags through the ages, the dark memory, the knot of pain, the absolute interdiction which rises—what? what interdict? An ancient, nameless, burning forfeiture, an inverse that, a dark origin of things. It was there; it had always been there, I knew it, it had never ceased to be there; one scratches a little and it is there, one scratches still more and it is the same—under the great unmoving Light, the great Shadow has not moved, it is there at every moment, intact. Oh! where is the pure, the unsullied, where is he, that singular man? I have roamed three continents, I have burned everything in order to burn that single shadow—but what? It was that, that's all, the old Threat, the Shame, the millstone that one drags, that halo of darkness which surrounds us and surrounds everything, the slightest gesture, the slightest encounter, the most fleeting glance, as if at every moment, at the least tear, the slightest scratch, the smallest crack, everything were going to turn suddenly into a vertiginous opposite: in one second it is done, a heart which beats to bursting, a giddiness, a flash, and everything is reversed, one passes to the other side—one walks in the dark country. At every second, it is there, under each smile, each fragment of light; and the more I touched that Light above, the greater grew the thing below, as if I became capable of a greater darkness—oh! “I”, who is the “I”? Where, me? I don't know... It is the faceless night, the swarming multitude, the old story, life ruined in a second: an obscure, innumerable “one” as heavy as the night of the dead and of all the dead that one drags along, as old as the suffering of men and the fury of the gods. It is the great rout in front of the pack, the lapidation at the gates of the city, the sorrow, the great Sorrow in the depths like two eyes which open on an immensity of sadness.

Ah! I understand! Now I understand why we erect our termite's ramparts and make our little revengeful laws: when one breaks the wall on top, one also breaks it below, everything enters, hell along with heaven In the depths of the night, as in heaven, there is no more “I”, it is an explosion of darkness like the explosion of light above, and all the sufferings of the world rush forth with all the shames. And I was there. I was Björn,—was I not him?—I was his darkness, his fall, his shame—where then are the “others”, where is that which is not me? Where is the fault from which I am absent, heaven for one alone, I wonder? Where are they, those world-delivered, those so-called “saved”, those counterfeiters of liberation? If one single man is in bondage, the whole world is in bondage! Because there is but one Man!... Si un seul homme est enchaîné, le monde entier est dans les chaînes! Parce qu'il n'y a qu'un Homme!

I walked in that acacia forest, walked blindly, interminably, as I had in the creeks of Guiana, in the minas of Brazil, as I had walked round and round in their prisons, walked everywhere, that long ancient walk of misery with a fire in the heart and unseeing eyes—one step, another step, one step, another step, and it is the same, there is no one, one is the night which moves, the old misery, the blood which throbs; and even the misery is dead, even the night, one no longer knows who is suffering or why—one is a moving rhythm, a burning fire. One is the self of fire. A fire, that is all one is. It burns, that is all one has; it has always burned, it is old like misery or love, it goes back to the depths of time, to the first step, to I know not what which suffers; it has no name, it is without reason; no face, it has no destiny; it has lived so much that it is like everybody, suffered so much that it understands everything... It was almost singing in that forest, it was a singing fire, a singing sorrow, or love, I know not, it was all melted into that. I am the self of fire, the ancient burning, where is my suffering, my downfall? I have no more night, no more misery, I have that which burns, that is all; I have no more shame, I have no. more past, no more “yes”, no more “no”, no more good, no more evil, all is burned; I have lost everything, I have that which burns, for nothing, for everything, for whoever wishes. It burns, it is all I have: it is my hell, my heaven, my misery or my joy, I know not, it is all the same; it is my great fiery rhythm, my very smallness which burns, my immensity of a single flame—where is my fall, my deliverance? There is only this fire which burns everywhere: where is the fault, the downfall? they burn; where is death? it burns; at the end there is this fire which burns, and on high also: everything is burned. I have no more high, no more low, no more black, no more white, it is all the same—where is my liberty, my slavery?

I raised my eyes and everything had changed.

Was it that ochre-tinted sand, my fever, or that fire in my heart? Or perhaps the heat haze which shimmered amongst the tormented trees? The world seemed bathed in orange. And it was not a “colour”, not something which “coloured”, which tinted the world; it was the very substance of the world which was different. Or perhaps it was not “different”: it was its false appearance of solidity which fell away and the true matter which emerged and radiated everywhere; the world became what it really is, the eyes saw the true world. It was warm, powerful like that fire in my heart, it had an extraordinary density—a radiation of warm, compact power—as if everything were alive, vibrant, coherent, made of the same substance as that flame in my heart, and of an indefinable tenderness—I was leaning over everywhere, in everything, burning everywhere, loving everywhere, recognizing everything. Oh! a love which was not the opposite of hate: not the opposite of anything nor the feeling of anything—it was simply like that, burning... burning. It had no object, no reason, it was not something one looks at and loves, and where was the “I” that loved in it? It was one single burning thing which one was in all corners, a single living fire which answered everywhere to itself, met itself everywhere, which made each everything an abyss. I had drowned in it, disappeared body and soul into an orange myriad vibrant with tenderness.

I came out onto the track.

A third time the siren sounded. A little chipmunk scampered away in front of me.

I felt as if I had made a long journey.

Then Bhaskar-Nath crossed my mind. And suddenly I understood: the “powerful light”, the power of the coming world, that's it!

I looked at my hand—Björn, Nisha, the flight, the dark trap-door under my feet... It was like a dream. I had walked for a long time, for ages, for lives, roamed continents—slums over there, seething creeks; red forests, blue forests; sometimes white havens, dunes of plenitude as if I had touched heaven; and then, nothing; that heaven was only the reverse of my dark flight, an escape into the light with eyes firmly shut so as not to see. Now I was reaching the port, at the end of my course; I was disembarking on that northern track as if for the first time in the world, the journey was over! There was no longer any haven, no more heaven, no more hell—disappeared, evaporated; they were drowned, both of them, the two accomplices. There was only that burning fire.

And everything was pure. And everything was true.

—Nil! Nil!

Balu flung himself on me like a whirlwind.

—Where is he?

His eyes fell on the blood-stained bandage, he dropped my arm.

—Where is he?

I pointed towards the forest. He looked at me again with a kind of terror.

He ran away without a word.

—Björn Björn

I heard him shouting in the forest.

Suddenly it was heart-rending: I saw Balu running, Björn somewhere there, and all that suffering, that misery of the world running, running, fleeing below, fleeing above, shutting itself up in a white prison, a black prison, Churches, laws, which cut the throat of the condemned, and it grows again, it grows again—each time it grows again. And then... it was there, in the depths of the night: a fiery orange heaven which changes everything. Evil had never been evil, it was the secret door of deliverance; good had never been good, it was the white prison of the blind—in that, they cease and are freed one from the other.

Then I turned to the left, and I did not even know that I had touched the Secret.

There were only my throbbing temples, that smarting hand, and Balu's lone little voice in the distance, which cried out in the forest: Björn! Björn!...

I went half drunk to Bhaskar-Nath's.