Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion, Book I

  In spite of himself he had to smile at the conclusion of the tale. Besides, he was already repentant of his crude behavior. He had a profound respect for Ghompal. It nettled him that he had been obliged to turn sharply on Ghompal when he meant merely to crush me. So, still smiling, he inquired in a kindly voice about Ghose, one of the Hindus who had returned to India some months ago.

  Ghose had died of dysentery shortly after arriving in India, Ghompal informed him.

  That's lousy, said Kronski, shaking his head despairingly, as if to imply that it was hopeless to combat conditions in a country like India. Then, turning to me, with a sad flicker of a smile: You remember Ghose, don't you? The fat, chubby little guy, like a squatting Buddha.

  I nodded. I should say I do remember him. Didn't I raise the money for him to go back to India?

  Ghose was a saint, said Kronski vehemently.

  A mild flicker of a frown came over Ghompal's face. No, not a saint, he said. We have many men in India who...

  I know what you're going to say, Kronski broke in. Just the same, to me Ghose was a saint. Dysentery! Good Christ! it's like the Middle Ages-worse than that! And he launched into a terrifying description of the diseases which still flourished in India. And from disease to poverty and from poverty to superstition and from these to slavery, degradation, despair, indifference, hopelessness. India was just a vast, rotting sepulchre, a charnel house dominated by conniving British exploiters in league with demented and perfidious rajahs and maharajahs. Not a word about the architecture, the music, the learning, the religion, the philosophies, the beautiful physionomies, the grace and delicacy of the women, the colorful garments, the pungent odors, the tinkling bells, the great gongs, the gorgeous landscapes, the riot of flowers, the incessant processions, the clash of tongues, races, types, the fermentation and pullulation amidst death and corruption. Statistically correct as always, he succeeded only in presenting the negative half of the picture. India was bleeding to death, true. But the part of her that was alive was resplendent in a way that Kronski could never appreciate. He never once mentioned a city by name, never differentiated between Agra and Delhi, Lahore and Mysore, Darjeeling and Karachi, Bombay and Calcutta, Benares and Colombo. Parsee, Jain, Hindu, Buddhist—they were all one, all miserable victims of oppression, all rotting slowly under a murderous sun to make an imperialist holiday.

  Between him and Ghompal there now ensued a discussion to which I only half listened. Each time I heard the name of a city I went on an emotional jag. The very mention of such words as Bengal, Gujurati, Malabar Coast, Kali-ghat, Nepal, Kashmir, Sikh, Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads, raga, stupa, pravritti, sudra, paranirvana, chela, guru, Hounaman, Siva was sufficient to put me in a trance for the rest of the evening. How could a man condemned to lead the restricted life of a physician in a cold, brutal city like New York dare to talk about setting in order a continent of half a billion souls whose problems were so vast, so multiform, as to stagger the imagination of India's own great pundits? No wonder he was attracted to the saintly characters whom he had made contact with in the infernal regions of the most Cosmococcic Corporation of America. These boys, as Ghompal called them (they ranged from twenty-three to thirty-five years of age) were like picked warriors, like chosen disciples. The hardships they had endured, first in getting to America, then struggling to keep body and soul together while finishing their studies, then finding the means to return, then renouncing everything in order to devote themselves to the advancement of their people—well, no American, no white American, any way, could brag of anything comparable. When now and then one of these boys went astray, became the lap-dog of some society woman or the slave of some ravishing dancer, I felt like rejoicing. It did me good to hear of Hindu boy lolling on soft cushions, eating rich foods, wearing diamond rings, dancing at night clubs, driving cars, seducing young virgins, and so on. I recalled a cultured young Parsee who had run off with some languorous middle-aged woman of dubious reputation; I remembered the malicious stories that were spread about him, the demoralization that he brought about among the less disciplined ones. It was grand. I followed his career with avidity, lapping up the dregs, imaginatively, as he moved from sphere to sphere. And then one day, when I was lying ill in the morgue which my wife had made of my room, he came to see me, bringing flowers and fruit and books, and he sat by my bed and held my hand, talked to me of India, of the wondrous life he had known as a child, of the miseries he had endured subsequently, of the humiliations inflicted upon him by Americans, of his hunger for life, a large life, a rich life, a splendorous life, and how he had grabbed the opportunity when it came and found it empty, empty of everything but clothes, jewels, money, women. He was giving it all up, he confided. He would go back to his people, suffer with them, raise them up if he could, and if not, die with them, die as they died, in the street, naked, homeless, shunned, despised, stepped on, walked over, spat upon, a bundle of bones which even the vultures would find it difficult to feast on. He would do this not out of guilt, remorse or repentance but because India in rags, India festering like a maggot, India starving, India writhing under the heel of the conqueror, meant more to him than all the comforts, opportunities and advantages of a heartless country like America. He was a Parsee, I say, and his family had been rich once; he had known a happy childhood at least. But there were other Hindus who had been reared in forest and field, who had lived what to us would seem an animal existence. How these obscure, shy individuals ever surmounted the stupendous obstacles which confronted them from day to day remains a mystery to me to this day. With them, at any rate, I travelled the roads that lead from village to town and town to city; with them I listened to the songs of simple folk, the tales of elderly men, the prayers of the devout, the admonitions of the gurus, the legends of the story tellers, the music of the street players, the wails and lamentations of the mourners. Through their eyes I saw the desolation wreaked upon a great people. But I saw also that there are qualities which survive the greatest desolation. In their faces, as they related their experiences, I saw reflected the gentleness, the humility, the reverence, the devotion, the faith, the truthfulness and the integrity of those millions whose destiny baffles and disturbs us. They die like flies and they are reborn; they increase and multiply; they offer up prayers and sacrifices, they resist not, and yet no foreign devil can extirpate. them from the soil which they nourish with their own impoverished carcasses. They are of all kinds, all conditions, all shades, all tongues, all cults; they shoot up like weeds and are trampled down like weeds. To lift the curtain upon even the tiniest segment of this seething life leaves the mind reeling with incertitude. Some are like hard-cut gems, some like rare flowers, some like monuments, some like blazing images of the divine, some like disembodied minds, some like rotting vegetables: side by side they move in an endless, confused throng.

  In the midst of these reflections Kronski reminded me in a loud voice that he had run into Sheldon. He wanted to pay you a visit, the blinking idiot, but I put him off ... I think he wanted to lend you some money.

  Crazy Sheldon! Curious that I should have thought of him on my way home. Money, yes ... I had had a hunch Sheldon would be lending me money again. I had no idea what I owed him. I never expected to pay him back—neither did he. I took what he offered because it made him happy. He was as mad as a hare, but cunning and wily, practical withal. He had fastened himself to me like a leech, for some obscure reason of his own which I never even tried to fathom.

  What fascinated me about Sheldon were the grimaces he made. And the way he gurgled when he spoke. It was as though an invisible hand were strangling him. To be sure, he had had some terrible experiences—in that murderous ghetto of Cracow where he was reared. There was one incident I would never forget: it had occurred during a pogrom just before his escape from Poland. He had rushed home in a panic during the butchering which was taking place in the street to find the room full of soldiers. His sister, who was pregnant, was lying on the floor, violated by one soldier afte
r another. His mother and father, their arms trussed behind them, were compelled to watch this horrible performance. Sheldon completely beside himself, had thrown himself on the soldiers and was cut down with a sabre. When he came to his mother and father were dead: his sister's body was lying naked beside them, her belly ripped open and stuffed with straw.

  We were walking through Tompkins Park the night he first related this story to me. (He repeated it a number of times subsequently, always in exactly the same way, even down to the words he used. And each time my hair stood on end and a cold shiver ran down my spine.) But that first evening, on concluding the story, I observed a queer change come over him. He was making those grimaces which I mentioned. It was as if he were trying to whistle and couldn't. His eyes, which were unusually small, sandy, inflamed, shrank to the size of two B.B. bullets. There was nothing to be seen between the lids but two burning pupils which bored clean through me. I had the most uncanny feeling when, grasping my arm and bringing his face close to mine, he began making a choking, gurgling sound which finally culminated in a noise very much like a peanut whistle. His emotions were so overpowering that for a few minutes, the while clutching me feverishly and pressing his face close to mine, there issued from his throat no recognizable human sound, nothing in the faintest resembling what we call speech. But what a language it was, this gurgling, hissing, choking, whistling frenzy! I couldn't turn my face away, even if I had wanted to; nor could I break his grip, because he had me in a vise. I wondered how long it would last, and would he throw a fit afterwards. But no!—when the emotion had subsided he began to talk in a calm, low voice, in a most matter of fact tone, indeed, quite as if nothing had occurred. We had resumed our stride and were making for the other end of the park. He was talking about the jewels which he had so cleverly swallowed, the value that had been put upon them, the way the emeralds and the rubies sparkled, how economically he lived, the insurance policies he sold in his spare time, and other seemingly unrelated facts and incidents.

  He related these things, as I say, in an unnaturally subdued vein, in an almost monotonous tone of voice, except that, now and then, when he came to the end of a sentence, he would raise his voice and end unintentionally on an interrogation point Meanwhile, however, his manner was undergoing a drastic change. He was becoming, as best I can explain it, lynx-like. All that he was narrating seemed directed towards some invisible presence. He was only using me, as a listener, so it seemed, to make known in a sly, insinuating fashion things which this other person, present but invisible, might construe in his or her own way. Sheldon is not a fool, he was saying in this oblique, glancing language. Sheldon has not forgotten certain little tricks which were played on him. Sheldon is behaving like a gentleman now, very comme il faut, but he is not asleep ... no, Sheldon is always on the qui vive. Sheldon can play the fox when he needs to. Sheldon can wear nice clothes, like everybody else, and behave most courteously. Sheldon is amiable, always ready to be of service. Sheldon is kind to little children, even to Polish children. Sheldon does not ask for anything. Sheldon is very quiet, very calm, very well-behaved ... BUT BEWARE!!! And then to my surprise Sheldon whistled ... a long, clear whistle which was intended, I have no doubt, as a warning to the invisible one. Beware the day! It was as clear as that, his whistle. Beware, because Sheldon is preparing something super-diabolical, something which the clumsy brain of a Polak could never imagine or invent. Sheldon has not been idle all these years...

  The money lending had come about quite naturally. It began that evening over a cup of coffee. As usual I had only five or ten cents in my pocket and was therefore obliged to let Sheldon take the check. The idea of the employment manager being without spending money was so inconceivable to Sheldon that for a moment I feared he would pawn all his jewels.

  Five dollars will be enough, Sheldon, said I, if you insist on lending me something.

  An expression of disgust came over Sheldon's face. Oh no, oh no-O-O! he exclaimed in a shrill, grating voice which rose almost to a whistle, Sheldon will never give five dollars. No-oo, Mr. Miller, Sheldon will give fifty dollars!

  And by God, with that he did fish out fifty dollars, in fives and singles. Again he put on his lynx-like air, looking beyond me as he doled the money out, and mumbling something between his teeth about showing some one what sort of man he, Sheldon, was.

  But Sheldon, I'll be broke again tomorrow, I said, pausing to see what effect this would produce.

  Sheldon smiled—a cagey, cunning smile, as if he were sharing some great secret with me.

  Then Sheldon will give you another fifty dollars tomorrow, he said, bringing the words out with a queer hissing effect.

  I have no idea when you will get the money back, I then informed him.

  In answer to this Sheldon produced three greasy bank books from his inside pocket. The deposits totalled over two thousand dollars. From his vest pockets he extracted a few rings whose stones glittered like the authentic thing.

  This is nothing, he said. Sheldon is not telling all.

  This was the beginning of our relationship, a rather strange one for the employment manager of a cosmococcic corporation. I wondered sometimes if other employment managers enjoyed these advantages. When I met with them occasionally at luncheons I felt more like a messenger boy than a personnel manager. I could never muster that dignity and self-importance in which they appeared to be perpetually enshrouded. They never seemed to look me in the eye when I spoke, but always at my baggy trousers, my run-down shoes, my torn, soiled shirt or the holes in my hat. If I told them an innocent little story they made so much of it that I was embarrassed. They were tremendously impressed, for example, when I told them about a certain messenger in the Broad Street office who, while waiting for his calls, would read Dante, Homer and Thomas Aquinas in the original. They didn't wait to hear that he had been a professor once in a university in Bologna, that he had tried to commit suicide because he had lost his wife and three children in a railroad accident, that he had lost his memory and had arrived in America with another man's passport, and that only after he had been working as a messenger for six months had he recovered his identity. That he had found the work agreeable, that he preferred to remain a messenger, that he wished to remain unknown—these things would have sounded too fantastic for their ears. All they could seize and marvel at was the fact that a messenger, in uniform, was able to read the classics in the original. Now and then I would borrow a ten spot from one of them, after relating one of these amusing incidents, never intending to repay of course. I felt compelled to extract some little token from them—for my services as entertainer. And what hemming and hawing they resorted to before coughing up these trivial sums! What a contrast to the easy touches I made among the goofy messengers!

  Reflections of this order always excited me to the breaking point. Ten minutes of introspective reverie and I was bursting to write a book. I thought of Mona. If only for her sake I ought to begin. And where would I begin? In this room which was like the lobby of an insane asylum? Begin with Kronski looking over my shoulder? Somewhere I had read recently about an abandoned city of Burma, the ancient capital of a region where, in the compass of a hundred miles, there once flourished eight thousand thriving temples. The whole area was now empty of inhabitants, had been so for a thousand years or more. Only a few lone priests, probably half-crazed, were now to be found among the empty temples. Serpents and bats and owls infested the sacred edifices; at night the jackals howled amidst the ruins.

  Why should this picture of desolation cause me such painful depression? Why should eight thousand empty, ruined temples awaken such anguish? People die, races disappear, religions fade away: it is in the order of things. But that something of beauty should remain, and be powerless to affect, powerless to attract us, was an enigma which weighed me down. For I had not even begun to build! In my mind I saw my own temples in ruins, before even one brick had been laid upon another. In some freakish way I and the goofy messengers who were to aid me were
prowling about the abandoned places of the spirit like the jackals which howled at night. We wandered amidst the halls of an ethereal edifice, a dream stupa, which would be abandoned before it could take earthly shape. In Burma the invader had been responsible for driving the spirit of man into the ground. It had happened over and over in the history of man and it was explicable. But what prevented us, the dreamers of this continent, from giving form and substance to our fabulous edifices? The race of visionary architects was as good as extinct. The genius of man had been canalized and directed into other channels. So it was said. I could not accept it. I have looked at the separate stones, the girders, the portals, the windows which even in buildings are like the eyes of the soul; I have looked at them as I have looked at separate pages of these books, and I have seen one architecture informing the lives of our people, be it in book, in law, in stone, in custom; I saw that it was created (seen first in the mind) then objectified, given light, air and space, given purpose and significance, given a rhythm which would rise and fall, a growth from seed to flourishing tree, a decline from shrivelled leaf and branch to seed again, and a compost to nourish the seed. I saw this continent as other continents before and after: creations in every sense of the word, including the very catastrophes which would make their existence forgotten...