The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [156]
Most people didn’t come to India to volunteer for a Catholic order of nuns. Most people came to visit ashrams, smoke ganja, and live on next to nothing. At breakfast one morning, Mitchell had walked into the dining room to find Mike sharing a table with a Californian in his sixties, dressed all in red.
“Anybody sitting here?” Mitchell asked, pointing to an empty chair.
The Californian, whose name was Herb, lifted his eyes to Mitchell’s. Herb considered himself a spiritual person. The way he held your gaze let this be known. “Our table is your table,” he said.
Mike was munching a piece of toast. After Mitchell sat down, Mike swallowed and said to Herb, “So go on.”
Herb sipped his tea. He was balding, with a shaggy gray beard. Around his neck hung a locket bearing a photograph of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
“There’s an amazing energy in Poona,” Herb said. “It’s something you can feel when you’re there.”
“I’ve heard about the energy,” Mike said, winking at Mitchell. “I’d like to maybe visit. Where is Poona, exactly?”
“Southeast of Bombay,” Herb said.
Originally the Rajneeshees—who referred to themselves as “devotees”—had worn saffron clothing. But recently the Bhagwan had decided that there was too much saffron in circulation. So he’d put out the order for his disciples to start wearing red.
“What do you guys do out there?” Mike pursued. “I hear you guys have orgies.”
There was toleration in Herb’s mild smile. “Let me try to put it in terms you’ll understand,” he said. “It’s not acts in themselves that are good or evil. It’s the intention of the acts. For a lot of people, it’s best to keep things simple. Sex is bad. Sex is a no-no. But for other people, who have, let’s say, attained a higher level of enlightenment, the categories of good and evil pass away.”
“So are you saying you have orgies out there?” Mike persisted.
Herb looked at Mitchell. “Our friend here has a one-track mind.”
“O.K.,” Mike said. “What about levitating? I hear people levitate.”
Herb gathered his gray beard in both hands. Finally he allowed, “People levitate.”
Throughout this discussion Mitchell busied himself with buttering toast and dropping cubes of raw sugar into his teacup. It was important to scarf down as much toast as possible before the waiters stopped serving.
“If I went to Poona would they let me in?” Mike asked.
“No,” Herb said.
“If I wore all red would they?”
“To stay at the ashram you’d have to be a sincere devotee. The Bhagwan would see that you’re not sincere, no matter what you’re wearing.”
“I’m interested, though,” Mike said. “I’m just kidding about the sex. The whole philosophy and everything, it’s interesting.”
“You’re full of shit, Mike,” Herb said. “I know bullshit when I see it.”
“Do you?” Mitchell suddenly said.
The challenge in this was clear, but Herb retained his equanimity, sipping tea. He glanced at Mitchell’s cross. “How’s your friend Mother Teresa?” he asked.
“She’s fine.”
“I read somewhere that she was just in Chile. Apparently, she’s good friends with Pinochet.”
“She travels a lot to raise money,” Mitchell said.
“Man,” Mike lamented, “I’m starting to feel sorry for myself. You’ve got the Bhagwan, Herbie. Mitchell’s got Mother Teresa. Who do I have? Nobody.”
Like the dining room itself, the toast was trying to be British, and failing. The bread slices were the right shape. They looked like bread. But instead of being toasted they’d been grilled over a charcoal fire and tasted of ash. Even the unburnt slices had a funny, unbreadlike taste.
People were still coming in to breakfast, filing up from the dormitories on the first floor. A group of sunburned Kiwis entered, each carrying a jar of Vegemite, followed by two women with kohl-rimmed