Chapter 7
I hadn’t realised that
the guru had finally stopped speaking, so lost had I become in not listening,
until he stood up and picked up the drum that was beside him. His translator
wife stood up beside him and looked at him expectantly.
I don’t know what conclusion
he had arrived at as I had spent the past hour and more thinking of other
things. I played the role of the interested person who was there to learn, but
it was just like any other undercover job, my thoughts were my own. Just as
when I had sat in the Marxism-Leninism lectures, just as when I went to the
Komsomol meetings, I silently thought of what I wanted to think about and paid
only enough attention so as to stay undercover. Silence was my weapon of
choice. But I was used to the role. I had been undercover my whole life. I
remember gazing out of the window in school thinking my own thoughts, but when
my teacher tried to trap me with a question, I would always know the answer.
Everyone began to stand
up and so I stood, too. There was a look of anticipation. They had all sat so
patiently, they had listened devoutly, but it was for this moment they did so.
The guru began to sing the mantra and beat the drum. He started what was a sort
of pied piper conga routine. Everyone followed, joining in the words ‘Hare
Krishna, Hare Krishna’. The rhythm got faster, the singing more ecstatic.
People ceased to be aware of their surroundings as they lost themselves in the
music. It was quite intoxicating, much more so than mere alcohol.
In order to play my
role I, too, had to at least momentarily go with the flow. I always favoured a
more or less method form of acting. Part of me would become what I was supposed
to be. If I had to pretend to be a communist, then I would in part became a
communist, just as Marlon Brando tried to become Terry Malloy when he played
him in ‘On the Waterfront’. Only by becoming a washed up former boxer could the
actor convincingly play someone who once had a chance to be a contender. In the
end, it’s the only way for me to be persuasive in the role. It needs to not be
a role. This is especially so if the role goes on for years. If you don’t
become it, you’ll always slip up somewhere along the way. So as I danced and
joined in the singing, I became a Hare Krishna devotee, or at least a part of
me did, while the other part looked on. To understand a problem you have to
understand it from within. It has to be your problem, touching you personally.
The abstract approach to the problems of philosophy and theology is deadly dull
and produces nothing of interest.
As I danced and sang, at
least for that short time, I became one with this group of revellers. I forgot
who I was and it was as if I could see myself fading away in the face of all
this oneness. But still I was only the actress who had worked herself up to the
state where she felt her hands were such that nothing could wash away the
blood. She was one with the role, but it wasn’t as if she actually was going to
go out and buy all the perfumes of Arabia. I still could look on myself acting
and yet there were moments during these bacchanalian dances when I became drunk
without drinking. I saw how extraordinarily powerful it all was. It was fun.
We’d been sitting patiently. The others, too, must have been bored. Maybe that
was the idea. Anyway, they’d all been concentrating on difficult concepts,
trying to understand their guru, who didn’t exactly make it easy. Perhaps, that
too was the point. The basic philosophy behind his views is relatively
straightforward to explain, but I don’t think he wanted to explain; he wanted
to make everything complex. In the end, he wanted to make everything dull, so
that then there would be this release. He had been building always towards
this. Suddenly, there was no longer any need to understand. Now there was only
the need to feel.
I saw Galina lose
herself in the ecstasy of the dance. Her face swooned. She reached a peak of
emotion. It looked as if she had never reached such a peak in any other way.
She was dependent on no-one. This peak she could reach by herself. She ceased
to follow the guru as did many others eventually who moved to their own inward
music always chanting with their minds and with their mouths ‘Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna’. That was all there was in the world. Just that mantra endlessly
repeated. They lost themselves in the chant, and I think they thought they were
glimpsing eternity. Who knows, perhaps, they were.
The song drew to a
conclusion. The guru slowed down his dance and came to a stop in the midst of
us. At this point we all simply murmured the mantra and the curtains around the
Krishna idol were closed, the candles put out, and like Bagpuss he went to
sleep. It took people some time to come down from the high. No wonder they
banned alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes. What need had they for such drugs
which could only inhibit this intoxication.
I saw David looking
blank. He, too, had lost himself in the revels, but I wasn’t sure what role he
was playing or whether he had a role at all. I snapped him out of it.
“Let’s go for a cigarette,” I said.
When we were outside I asked him what he thought.
“I couldn’t follow much
the lecture, but the dance at the end was quite fun. Rather like losing
yourself in the music when some sort of techno rhythm keeps pounding.”
“Is it what you expected?”
“To be honest, I hadn’t
a clue what to expect. I wasn’t even completely sure that Galina was a Hare
Krishna.”
“You know now. I think she wants you to be one, too.”
“I’m not sure she knows
herself what she wants. There is something between us, we’ve been writing for a
long time, but I’m not sure what it is. I flew here to find out. It was a gesture.”
“You have no interest in Hare Krishna?”
“No, none at all, I’m a
Catholic who rarely goes to church, but I know what I believe.”
“All the same, be careful with these people, David.
It’s powerful stuff.”
“I saw that. You kind of feel something in the dance.
Did you?”
“Yes. We all felt it. It’s why we must be careful.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“About Galina? It’s not
easy. She only seems concerned at the moment with the Hare Krishna stuff. Let
her talk to you about it. Show interest. Talk to the others as if you are
interested. Why not? It is interesting. Find out, but very gently stick to your
own beliefs. Don’t concede anything. Tell everyone that you are here to see Galina.
But that you’re happy to find out about something important to her. Take that
line when you speak to her. But try to get her alone. I don’t think she wants
that at the moment. But find a time when you can go for a walk and then make
your offer. Say what you’ve come here to say.”
“Just like that? I’ve made hints, of course, in my letters, but
she doesn’t always pick up on them, perhaps they are too hidden.”
“Believe me, David, she
knows why you are here. Why else would a man fly all the way from Scotland to
Moscow? She’s used the fact that you love her to get you to come. So no more
hints. Get her alone sometime and tell her how you feel. Make her an offer.
Surprise her. It may just shake her out of this.”
“Why are you here, Effie?
“I’ve known Galina for
years. I haven’t seen her for a while. She’s a sort of friend and I wanted to
see what she was up to.”
We went back inside and
saw that preparations were being made for dinner. I didn’t expect anything much
different from lunch. I wasn’t disappointed.
