Island - Aldous Huxley [140]
Another gust of cool air brought with it a louder strain of the gay, bright music.
“All those young people dancing together,” said Dr. Robert. “All that laughter and desire, all that uncomplicated happiness! It’s all here, like an atmosphere, like a field of force. Their joy and our love—Susila’s love, my love—all working together, all reinforcing one another. Love and joy enveloping you, my darling; love and joy carrying you up into the peace of the Clear Light. Listen to the music. Can you still hear it, Lakshmi?”
“She’s drifted away again,” said Susila. “Try to bring her back.”
Dr. Robert slipped an arm under the emaciated body and lifted it into a sitting posture. The head drooped sideways onto his shoulder.
“My little love,” he kept whispering. “My little love…”
Her eyelids fluttered open for a moment. “Brighter,” came the barely audible whisper, “brighter.” And a smile of happiness intense almost to the point of elation transfigured her face.
Through his tears Dr. Robert smiled back at her. “So now you can let go, my darling.” He stroked her gray hair. “Now you can let go. Let go,” he insisted. “Let go of this poor old body. You don’t need it any more. Let it fall away from you. Leave it lying here like a pile of worn-out clothes.”
In the fleshless face the mouth had fallen carvernously open, and suddenly the breathing became stertorous.
“My love, my little love…” Dr. Robert held her more closely. “Let go now, let go. Leave it here, your old worn-out body, and go on. Go on, my darling, go on into the Light, into the peace, into the living peace of the Clear Light…”
Susila picked up one of the limp hands and kissed it, then turned to little Radha.
“Time to go,” she whispered, touching the girl’s shoulder.
Interrupted in her meditation, Radha opened her eyes, nodded and, scrambling to her feet, tiptoed silently towards the door. Susila beckoned to Will and, together, they followed her. In silence the three of them walked along the corridor. At the swing door Radha took her leave.
“Thank you for letting me be with you,” she whispered.
Susila kissed her. “Thank you for helping to make it easier for Lakshmi.”
Will followed Susila across the lobby and out into the warm odorous darkness. In silence they started to walk downhill towards the marketplace.
“And now,” he said at last, speaking under a strange compulsion to deny his emotion in a display of the cheapest kind of cynicism, “I suppose she’s trotting off to do a little maithuna with her boy friend.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Susila calmly, “she’s on night duty. But if she weren’t, what would be the objection to her going on from the yoga of death to the yoga of love?”
Will did not answer immediately. He was thinking of what had happened between himself and Babs on the evening of Molly’s funeral. The yoga of antilove, the yoga of resented addiction, of lust and the self-loathing that reinforces the self and makes it yet more loathsome.
“I’m sorry I tried to be unpleasant,” he said at last.
“It’s your father’s ghost. We’ll have to see if we can exorcise it.”
They had crossed the marketplace and now, at the end of the short street that led out of the village, they had come to the open space where the jeep was parked. As Susila turned the car onto the highway, the beam of their headlamps swept across a small green car that was turning downhill into the bypass.
“Don’t I recognize the royal Baby Austin?”
“You do,” said Susila, and wondered where the Rani and Murugan could be going at this time of night.
“They’re up to no good,” Will guessed. And on a sudden impulse he told Susila of his roving commission from Joe Aldehyde, his dealings with the Queen Mother and Mr. Bahu.
“You’d be justified in deporting me tomorrow,” he concluded.
“Not now that you’ve changed your mind,” she assured him. “And anyhow nothing you did could have affected the real issue. Our enemy is oil in general. Whether we’re exploited by Southeast