By The Body Of The Earth or The Sannyasin

The Japanese Hospital

It was 9 o'clock. Balu protested vehemently. I tried to explain to him that Björn would be saved, that it was necessary to separate him from that Tantric.

—He must not go away, he must not, he must not... Besides, he doesn't go there any longer.

—But Balu, we shall come back. Don't you see how thin he is; if we wait, we will not be able to transport him.

He shook his head stubbornly:

—He must not, he must not...

It was useless to argue with him. I ordered him to go and fetch a cart. He went away without a word. Remained Björn. I expected him to resist also, but he allowed himself to be handled like a child, with perfect indifference. I took his towels and his red wallet, wrapped his scarf around him and lifted him up. He could hardly stand. I put my arm round his neck and we went out into the corridor. He turned back for an instant towards his “poop-deck”, then looked at the margosa over the well, the thorny bushes and Kali's Rock in the distance. I thought he was going to say something. He clenched his teeth:

—Let's go.

There are ways of looking at things which say everything even when we have understood nothing; someone inside already knows the time while outside we are still calculating.

My heart was as if in a vice. I should have stopped; I should have followed that sort of malaise, that something which was weighing on my heart like a stone round the neck of a drowning man, but I, too, had begun my act and I continued.

Balu was waiting below with the cart. He took Björn's hand gently, as one takes the hand of a child:

—Come Björn, come, I'll make you comfortable.

Björn seemed completely elsewhere. He looked at the street, the jingling horse cart, the passers-by, as in a dream. I saw a little dimple in his cheek wrinkle imperceptibly. Balu tucked him into a corner at the back of the cart, with a sack of fodder behind him. Then he sat down between Björn and me, his legs dangling, and we started off at full speed, the driver standing on the shafts, shouting at the top of his voice, as in a Roman chariot race... There was a bump. I banged against the partition, Björn collapsed on me. Balu rolled onto the pavement... The damnable driver drove on for fifty metres before I could stop him. I ran to Balu. He got up, blood running down his forehead.

—It's nothing, I tell you, it's nothing.

I took him by the arm.

—I tell you, it's nothing!

He pushed me away angrily.

I thought I heard my own voice speaking to Björn in that acacia forest: “It's nothing, Björn, it's nothing,” while the blood spurted out of my hand. Everything was repeating itself.

I sponged him with a towel. He was green. My head was throbbing like a drum. I should have stopped, turned back; if I had not understood Balu's reasons, I should at least have understood that sign thrown in my face. But I was in my implacable logic: “signs” were only good for dreamers. Oh! until the end of my life I will know that there is no worse type, none more stubborn, more harmful than these saviours of others. When we have good reasons, it is the first indubitable sign that we are entering unreason, because there are four hundred and sixty-six million reasons in the world and not a single one which can stand for another.

We arrived at the station. There also a sign awaited me. But I was in my aberration; I heard nothing, I saw nothing but my own idea. I was even more blind than before, because, deep down, I was accusing myself, and I was as mad in my accusation as in my justification—in fact, we are completely mad, in both ways and in all ways, as long as we have not gotten out of our black or white logic.

O Tara, O Mother
I am the chariot, thou art the charioteer

The beggar from the little beach. He came straight to me with his hand outstretched

It is Thou who doest the action, O Mother
And they say: it is I who do
O Tara, Tara
Thou art the All-Will
Thou art the winding of the path
And the arrow of the enemy
As Thou goest, so go I

I looked at him. For an instant I felt that little music of truth, so simple, and I had only to stop there, to re-connect myself with the great current and I would have known, immediately. But I was so deaf! Sometimes, it seems to me that everything is known deep within, eternally known, and that all our efforts, our desires, our frenzied actions are only a resistance to something which flows naturally: a mist over the light. In truth, we do not seek, we do not act: we resist.

I installed Björn in a berth. Balu sat down at his feet and did not take his eyes off of him. The blood was still trickling down his forehead; he sat very straight, his head held high like a little warrior: “You are the king. I am guarding you.” And I who thought I was guarding him better with my good reasons!... I raised my eyes: it was Nisha, standing behind the window, her hands pressing her cheeks, a yellow marigold stuck in her hair, warned I know not how. They were all warned! She looked at Björn, open-mouthed.

There was an acacia in bloom near the track.

The train whistled.

Balu got up, he touched Björn's feet, folded his palms in front of his forehead. Björn half-straightened himself as if he were waking up; he looked at Balu with big eyes burning with light. I do not know what passed between those two beings at that moment and I shall never know. Balu bowed slightly, his mouth trembled, then tight-lipped he went out without a glance at me. The train started. I saw Nisha again, her hands pressing her cheeks, and then Balu's little silhouette, very straight in the midst of crates of lemons, his palms folded, saluting his king.

The train left.

My heart sank.

If I had not been blind at that moment, I would have seen that everything was yellow around me: the acacia in bloom, the lemons on the platform, the flower stuck in Nisha's hair... A yellow painting on a background of burning sand and platforms. I wonder if the colour of my soul at that moment was not yellow also.

Then, for the second time, it seemed to me that the circle was closing in. And I felt it in a very simple way: all the little waves came banging one against the other and became entangled instead of gliding into infinity without leaving a trace. They came back on me: everything had entered into a false rhythm. It was that, the end of a cycle: nothing passed through any more, there was a locking-in somewhere.

We crossed the bridge. The same cadence on the iron girders—there is a music for each thing, as there is a colour for each moment and stars which pass—and it was so poignant, that little rhythm, like that first day with the Sannyasi when I thought I had seen a brother under my closed eyes:

O brother
What are you waiting for?

And it came back again, as if from very far: what are you waiting for, what are you waiting for?...

It is time
And life goes by in vain

It was almost unbearable, this passing of time. I looked at that Björn lying on the berth, at the passing dunes, and I had completed a circle. One hardly opens one's eyes and it is already finished, one has crossed the bridge, left the island—life does not last the whole of life! What remains?... Some impressions, faces like a breeze, the colour of a sky, the refrain of a song which comes back; gestures, millions of meaningless gestures, lingering remorse; but where is the hour which counts? Where is it?... That ultimate “something else”... L'autre chose absolument.

—Nil...

He looked at me.

—Where are you taking me?

—To get you treated.

He laid his head down again with a kind of listlessness.

—Have the petrels arrived?

—The petrels... I don't know Björn. No, soon.

—Soon...

He said nothing more.

We still had to take a car and travel for two hours under a leaden sun.

—After the river, said the driver.

—After the river, but where was that river? We were driving in a rocky desert and everything was beginning again. Björn had slid down on the seat, his knees drawn up, his eyes shut; I had to hold him to prevent him from falling onto the floor... And rocks, enormous rocks, endless, burning, polished like ante-diluvian skulls and, sometimes, a dazzling paddy field with little white grebes; then the jungle—the dense, stridulant, tormented jungle, no taller than a man, where mounds of stones floated like a giant's marbles. Where was there a Japanese Hospital in all that, where?... I questioned the chauffeur every ten minutes.

—After...

That was all: “after”... After what?

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when we arrived.

A dozen real trees, a village—perhaps the outskirts of a town? There were tumbledown brick houses bordering a dried-up river, some huts, a few stalls. Then a compound surrounded by high walls.

—It's there. Shall I enter?

I raised my eyes—I remained horror-struck.

There was an arch over the gateway, and on a board in clear black letters painted in tar, the words: Mental Hospital, Asylum.

—But...

I looked at Björn; his eyes were shut, he had seen nothing. Go away again?... But where? Travel for another two hours under that leaden sun, and then the station... Björn half opened his eyes.

—For God's sake hurry up! Enter!

He had seen nothing.

He must drink first, Björn must rest, oh! what a fool I had been, a complete fool. Tomorrow, at dawn, we shall leave.

The chauffeur parked the car under a tree—there was no hospital! There was a bare waste ground in red laterite, a broken-down bungalow and creepers on the rotting pillars. I ran and struck the gong. A servant came dragging his feet, half-asleep; he told me that Dr. Ezaki did not come down before 3 o'clock. It was 2 o'clock. It was 40° C in the shade. The surface of laterite was as hot as an oven, I could not even take Björn out and seat him under a tree.

Dr. Ezaki arrived at three twenty-five. He sat down comfortably in an armchair, lit a cigarette and introduced his assistant, Dr. Shimizu, to me.

—I am bringing you my brother. He is not mad.

—Yes.

He is thirsty, he needs rest. We have driven for two hours in this sun.—Moreover, he has not eaten for three weeks.

Dr. Ezaki re-adjusted his spectacles and launched into a torrent of English which was as uneven as the gravel.

—You see, my dear Sir, there is no illness, only forces in disequilibrium...

I was overwhelmed.

—We start from the axiom that everything in Nature is made up of two principles: Yin and Yang, feminine and masculine...

I looked at the meticulous little man surrounded by porcelain, the empty aquarium in which a piece of coral hung; I felt like taking my head in my hands and to do as Björn: shut my eyes and get out of it all.

So, if you have an excess of Yin, for example (which we can soon determine), it is easy to correct it by adding Yang elements in the food. Brinjals, for example...

—Listen, Sir, he is in the car dying of heat; he is under the hood. It is 4 o'clock. He needs a bed and to be left in peace, for God's sake!

The doctor jumped up like a puppet, then said three words in Japanese to his assistant and we went out.

Björn lay crumpled on the seat, prostrate, dripping with sweat, his face covered with tiny, watery blisters. There was a little blood at the corner of his mouth. My heart was as heavy as lead. I think I could have cried. I tried to lift him: he fell back onto the cushions. Then Dr. Shimizu took him in his arms and we went round the bungalow.

And there, I had my second shock. On the cracked red laterite, in the middle of this wasteland, there was an enormous cement platform, thirty metres long and roughly one metre high, and on it, side by side, about fifteen tiny cells, barricaded like cages.

I opened my mouth...

—You see, there are wild animals at night, and sometimes floods.

Björn's head was lolling in Dr. Shimizu's arms. A male nurse rushed up to us. I wanted to vomit.

—You will have all the room you want. We have only three cases at the moment.

We entered Cell No. 4.

There was just enough place for a bed, a chair, a water-jug and a copper pot. We laid Björn on the bed.

—I shall send you some tea and biscuits. I will be back at 5 o'clock, when the patient is rested.

They went away.

I remained alone, my head between my hands, squatting on the ground at the foot of the bed.

I called with all my strength—I called... who, what, I do not know, my light, the truth, that which exists, that which is true, that, that, oh! I called desperately like a child in the night... And then, gradually, peace came to me, everything became very silent. Then that great Force began to flow through me, through my head, my heart, my chest, a great current of refreshing sweetness, so tranquil, and so strong at the same time, it was as if I were bathed in a lake of peace, a presence so compact and concrete, that tears came to my eyes—yes, that was there; that exists; that is true, it is there, always there, and the world can disintegrate! Oh! he who has not once felt the wonder of that flow will never understand the madness of my words.

I got up, undressed Björn, emptied half the jug of water over his body. Then I sponged him. He revived a little, opened his eyes.

—Don't worry, Björn, I'm here, I'm watching over you, don't worry, brother, we'll get out of this.

He almost smiled.

I don't know what there might have been in my voice, but he looked at me sweetly; I almost felt a tenderness in his eyes. Then I put a mug of water to his lips; he drank greedily. He laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

For a long time I looked at that wasteland, there was a big tamarind tree at the far end of the courtyard. I think I must have fallen asleep. Suddenly, I saw Batcha. Batcha leaning over me. Batcha... but more than Batcha, a luminous, almost radiant Batcha, and I sank into her as if I were melting; it was incredibly sweet, a sort of luminous fainting: we were airy, as if made of a substance of light, a froth of light, but a living light, conscious, extraordinarily sensitive, in which each particle mingled with the other in a delight of airy fusion. And there was an absolute security—nothing in the world can give that kind of security, nothing: there, one is for ages, protected, enveloped in an indestructible body—yes, a body of light. And it was Batcha. Although I could not see her face, nor her body really, it was her as indubitably as (more indubitably than) if I were seeing her in flesh and blood: the body was a sort of caricature of that, a limited, hardened image, an almost arbitrary cut-out, in order to make a little piece of the earthly Batcha, a small facet of that whole, and pour it into a mould. In truth, we have a dozen faces and bodies of all kinds, ways of being of all colours, stories that are profound and of all ages, which make a great secret efflorescence, but we see only one face, only one story; and there, it was Batcha complete with all her faces, her depths, almost all her different stories, gathered together into an ineffable essence of softly sweet light.

It was the first time I was seeing that.

It gave me a little shock; for a fraction of a second I wondered if she were really angry with me... and everything vanished. There was that tray of tea in front of me. I still had time to remember that she was taller than I had thought. Then I fell back into that kind of troubled greyness that one calls “life”.

—Do you want some tea?

He started and looked round him with a sort of bewilderment; then he remembered, he looked at me with such distress:

—Let's go, Nil, help me, let's get out of here, I don't like being locked in.

I carried him outside, settled him on the cement platform in front of the cell, with a pillow behind his back. He drank his glass of tea in a single gulp.

—Give me some more, I'm hungry.

My heart leapt. I gave him a biscuit—two, three. He was eating! I wanted to shout with joy, to clap my hands. But I dared not say anything for fear of frightening away the miracle. Then he began to look at the barricaded cells, the ochre-washed walls round that wasteland, the scraps of bandages hanging on the tufts of thorns. There was a dispensary-smell coming from an isolated hut.

—You have chosen a funny place

His voice was sweet like that of a child.

There was not the least trace of bitterness, not a reproach; all the hate he had been flinging at me for weeks seemed suddenly dissipated.

His gaze returned to the tamarind tree.

—It's beautiful...

He looked at the tree for a long time, smiling, quiet. It was huge that tree, almost leafless; it seemed as though it had been struck by lightning; only great bursted pods and a tangle of twigs remained on which the sky hung a myriad flakes of light.

—It's beautiful, Björn repeated... Just as it was back there, under the silver birch. I knew there would be a tree.

—Tomorrow morning, we'll go away, I promise you Björn, we'll leave this place and go back to the island.

—Oh! you know...

He nodded his head. Then I noticed that tears were running down his cheeks.

—Björn...

He began to speak in a clear, slightly high-pitched voice, fitfully, like a feverish child.

—It's strange Nil, I have the feeling of being at ease here. I don't even know whether I wish to go back there... I feel fine. It's all empty. Like this courtyard. But it's fine, it's almost sweet.

His eyes swept over the rough laterite, over the thorny bushes.

—It doesn't matter, you know. Oh! (he gave a small broken laugh) I wanted so many things, Nil, I ran after so many things, I wanted so much... and now, I no longer know what I want, I even think I no longer want anything—there is nothing left: no more Balu, no more Guruji, no more Erik—no more anything, look, it's quite empty. It's as if I had found everything. Everything. It's quiet. I seem to be exactly where I should be; for once in my life, I have the feeling of being where I should be, it's strange.

He looked round him with a kind of surprise. His eyes returned to the tamarind tree. A child began to cry in the dispensary.

—It's strange Nil, it's as though I have waited for this day all my life. Do you realise what a roundabout way one takes... And it's so simple, hein, there's no need of anything: one is there... some pebbles and a tree.

Once again he gave that cracked laugh.

—I wanted initiation. Initiation, just imagine!... Oh Nil! I have the impression of an enormous falsehood—being ripped to pieces. An enormous lie. Something which was there all the time, in front, over life, stuck onto life: a screen. And now there is no longer any screen—there is nothing to find!

He closed his eyes for a moment and I felt something like a breeze of light enveloping him.

Then Dr. Ezaki arrived with his small packets of filing-cards and a stethoscope on his stomach.

Björn was smiling at the tamarind tree.

—Ah! here is our patient. We are eating biscuits, we are good, let's see, let's see...

He rubbed his hands together. The assistant followed him with a phial, a sphygmoscope and some rubber tubes. Björn allowed himself to be carried onto the bed, he was still smiling. I heard him reply quietly and patiently to the doctor's questions while Shimizu turned him about in all directions. I watched through the bars, I don't know whether I wanted to cry or sing: Björn was saved, Björn, my brother! It was so simple!... I looked at the tamarind tree, at the bits of cotton hanging from the bushes, the ochre-washed walls. And suddenly, I was back on the Appelplatz of that camp—my striped clothes, my serial number, my head shaved like a criminal... What a farce! A formidable farce, everywhere—at all levels, on all latitudes, in all forms: an invention. An invention of bad and an invention of good, an invention of hate and of illness, of folly and of wisdom—there was nothing of all that! There was only something which smiled.

—And you were eating wheat semolina how many times a day?...

Now he was putting a tourniquet around Björn's arm, feeling his ribs. He was going to discover that Björn had galloping consumption or what? And Björn was in the cage, smiling. He was smiling and there was no cage, not a vestige of consumption! But if he forgot to smile, he would have a fantastic consumption and he was doomed. It was like that, really like that. I was going to die on the first occasion from the boot-kick of an SS guard, but I didn't believe in the SS, oh no! I didn't believe in them at all! A farce, a terrific farce, and not an ounce of truth, either on one side or the other: not in the victim, not in the executioner, not in the lunatic, not in the doctor—there was only that second, that pure second when one draws back the curtain... cette pure seconde où on tire le rideau... and that shines. Then one smiles, it is over. One is invulnerable. But we cling to that curtain, oh! we cling to it, we daub it in all colours—yellow, red, blue, philanthropy, religion, love, hate, initiations—but it is all the same, nothing but a curtain of falsehood. One draws back the curtain, and that is true. Everything is true. True everywhere, in the courtyard of an asylum or on the prettiest little beach in the world.

—I see what it is...

Dr. Ezaki went out, I stood up like an automaton.

—Tomorrow morning, we shall perform an intubation, but I have formed an opinion.

I looked at him. He was perhaps expecting me to ask him what his opinion was.

—It's a Yang deficiency.

—A deficiency...

Oh! a Truth deficiency, of course, there is only that deficiency!

He gave me a disgusted look and went away again with his phials. I jumped towards Björn and clasped his shoulder:

—Brother, tomorrow we'll go away, we will start a new life!

He smiled. He sat up on his bed in order to see the tree better.

—I heard them, you know.

—What?

—The birds.

—The birds...

—Yes, everything had melted.

—Oh! Björn... You are not going to do anything silly again?

—But why? You know, I watched them just now, they were feeling me all over, it was so queer... Nil, I no longer see as I used to see. Before, it was hard, full of asperities, it resisted, and was also opaque, one barged into something at every step. Now, it seems as though everything is extended, yes, as if things trailed an immense past, an immense future, spaces of sweetness—you know, as when one hauls in a huge net and so many things come with it? Like that. One hauls in a big net, and one is small, very small, things recede, become distant, they are very sweet. Then suddenly there is nothing but the cry of a bird in the distance. That's all there is. A bird's cry... un cri d'oiseau... There's no more Erik, no more Balu, there's nothing more, it's vague, fused—but that bird's cry, oh! that's so sure, so true, so much there... You know, the cry of ganders on the lake, behind the mist: that calls from so far, so far away... And then it's so full, oh! it melts everything.

He opened his hands on his bed.

—It's like a door which opens... A door of snow. Tranquil, tranquil. And one goes through.

I caressed his forehead.

—Don't worry, Nil, you did well, all is well. And all the knots are undone. Tomorrow we shall leave.

I left him. I went to find the chauffeur to arrange for the departure:

—Above all, not a word to the doctor.

Then I went to the well behind the bungalow, I wanted to take a bath. My head was burning.

The sun was already setting, little chipmunks were chasing each other amongst the stones. Everything was so peaceful, it was like the end of a long journey. Oh! “all is well”, Björn was right, in reality all is always well! But we only see part of the story, a fragment of the note, a portion of the film, that is why it is never well! And perhaps I had been right after all in bringing Björn here? Perhaps I had done nothing at all, but follow the little impulse which, leads things?... When I look behind me, it is like a tremendous complicity, such a minute organisation which uses even our absent-mindedness, our good-bad will, as if all were equal, all good for the goal—always nearer, always the imperturbable golden meridian which leads directly to the little door without losing a second, without an extra grain of dust, without any useless suffering. And I wonder, I wondered that evening, if that little impulse—those pilgrims bobbing up from I know not where with their Japanese Hospital, these chance encounters, those turnings—could not be conditioned by a certain inner state, a certain clarity, an inner tonality which made one grasp one kind of vibration rather than another, that yellow, red, or blue frequency, and, perhaps, constantly, the picture could be infinitely variable; the encounters, the circumstances, the accidents, infinitely fluctuating; and yet it is always the same picture, the same events, but coloured this way or that: Nisha or Batcha, the white island, the red island, or this cement island in the midst of the laterite. Sometimes I feel,—I have felt in this life—that I am a spectator of a caricature of something which could have been different and which is nevertheless always the same thing, but travestied, with a grimace instead of a smile. And perhaps we are watching a fantastic magic lantern show unfolding the same indestructible story: now a green castle, now a shower of stars, a tragedy or a song. And when the white door opens, it is the great eternal picture. Then, here or there, clothed in wisdom or in shame, in folly or in rectitude, in yellow or in red, we are in the vast smile for ever and the stars can come crashing down out of the sky... et les étoiles pouvaient crouler.

I was about to empty the last bucketful of water over my head when I heard shouts coming from the village. I stopped, something froze in me. But it was from the village, Björn could not be in the village! A terrible anxiety gripped me. I dressed and ran to the gate. There was a crowd at the end of the street. I ran towards the crowd; I followed the gaze of the people. I looked up... and remained petrified. Björn was there, stark naked, on the grain merchant's terrace, menacing the crowd with bricks in his hand.

Then I saw Dr. Shimizu advancing stealthily behind him with his arms outstretched; I shouted: Björn! Björn!... In one bound, Shimizu jumped on him, caught him in a stranglehold. Björn struggled frenziedly. Then he collapsed. Two minutes later, Dr. Shimizu was in the street, Björn in his arms, inert. Dr. Ezaki arrived. They carried him to his cell. He was white.

—But what happened, what? Tell me, for heaven's sake!

Dr. Shimizu was pouring water over Björn's face.

—Don't know.

Björn opened his eyes. He looked round him like a hunted animal and then caught sight of me. Oh! that look, never in my life shall I forget that mad accusation as if he were saying to me: “You! You!” Then he turned his head away and closed his eyes.

I never saw his eyes again.

Dr. Ezaki was waiting calmly outside, a cigarette between his lips. He was watching all that coldly; I wanted to strangle him:

—But, good God, what happened? Are you going to speak or not?

He blew out the smoke from his cigarette.

—I saw your brother going out into the street. He stopped for a minute in front of the gate, looking at the board. Then I told Shimizu to go and help him, he could hardly stand on his feet. When he saw Shimizu, he ran away. You saw the rest.

I spent a long time near Björn, fanning him. It was night. The cell was full of mosquitoes, not a breath of air, we were stifling in there. I spoke to him; I said anything, whatever passed through my head; I knew that he was not sleeping, I knew that he heard me. He did not speak, he did not move. Only, from time to time, in the hollow of his cheek, I saw a small hardened dimple which creased imperceptibly, as if he were saying to me: you have betrayed me, you have betrayed me... I looked at that small dimple for hours. I took his hand, I sponged his forehead—nothing moved except that little line: you have betrayed me, you have betrayed me...

Exhausted, I went to lie down in the neighbouring cell. It was pitch dark. Tomorrow, at dawn, I would get him out by fair means or foul, oh! what a fool I had been, what a fool... I slept heavily.

When I woke up the next day, the sun was already shining on the tamarind tree. With a bound I rushed to Björn's cell. He was doubled up on the ground, his head against the bars. The door was locked. I screamed, yelled for those damnable doctors

—But why did you lock the door, why, good God Why?

—The wild animals, you understand, there are wild animals at night.

I lifted Björn up. He had a bruise on his shoulder. He must have hurled himself against the door.

He was dead.

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