The Schopenhauer Cure(38)
Your mother
J. Schopenhauer
In his old age Arthur wrote, “When I finished reading this letter I shed a flood of tears.” By return mail he opted for liberation from his apprenticeship, and Johanna responded, “That you have so quickly come to a decision, against your wont, would disquiet me in anyone else. I should fear rashness; with you it reassures me, I regard it as the power of your innermost desires that drives you.’
Johanna wasted no time; she notified Arthur’s merchant patron and his landlord that Arthur was leaving Hamburg, she organized his move and arranged for him to attend a gymnasium in Gotha, fifty kilometers from his mother’s home in Weimar.
Arthur’s chains were broken.
15
Pam in India
* * *
It is noteworthy and remarkable to see how man, besides his life in the concrete, always lives a second life in the abstract…(where) in the sphere of calm deliberation, what previously possessed him completely and moved him intensely appears to him cold, colorless, and distant: he is a mere spectator and observer.
* * *
As the Bombay-Igatpuri train slowed for a stop at a small village, Pam heard the clangs of ceremonial cymbals and peered through the grimy train window. A dark-eyed boy of about ten or eleven, pointing to her window, ran alongside holding aloft a raised rag and yellow plastic water pail. Since she had arrived in India two weeks ago, Pam had been shaking her head no. No to sightseeing guides, shoe shines, freshly squeezed tangerine juice, sari cloth, Nike tennis shoes, money exchange. No to beggars and no to numerous sexual invitations, sometimes offered frankly, sometimes discreetly by winking, raising eyebrows, licking lips, and flicking tongues. And, finally, she thought, someone has actually offered me something I need. She vigorously nodded yes, yes to the young window washer, who responded with a huge toothy grin. Delighted with Pam’s patronage and audience, he washed the pane with long theatrical flourishes.
Paying him generously and shooing him away as he lingered to stare at her, Pam settled back and watched a procession of villagers snake their way down a dusty street following a priest clad in billowing scarlet trousers and yellow shawl. Their destination was the center of the town square and a large papier-maché statue of Lord Ganesha, a short plump Buddha-like body bearing an elephant’s head. Everyone—the priest, the men dressed in gleaming white, and the women robed in saffron and magenta—carried small Ganesha statues. Young girls scattered handfuls of flowers, and pairs of adolescent boys carried poles holding metal burners emitting clouds of incense. Amid the clash of cymbals and the roll of drums, everyone chanted, “Ganapathi bappa Moraya, Purchya varshi laukariya.”
“Pardon me, can you tell me what they’re chanting?” Pam turned to the copper-skinned man sitting opposite her sipping tea, the only other passenger sharing the compartment. He was a delicate win-some man dressed in a loose white cotton shirt and trousers. At the sound of Pam’s voice he swallowed the wrong way and coughed furiously. Her question delighted him since he had been attempting, in vain, since the train commenced in Bombay to strike up a conversation with the handsome woman sitting across from him. After a vigorous cough he replied, with a squeak, “My apologies, madam. Physiology is not always at one’s command. What the people here, and throughout all of India today, are saying is ‘Beloved Ganapati, lord of Moraya, come again early next year.’”
“Ganapati?”
“Yes, very confusing, I know. Perhaps you know him by his more common name, Ganesha. He has many other names, as well, for example, Vighnesvara, Vinayaka, Gajanana.”
“And this parade?”
“The beginning of the ten-day festival of Ganesha. Perhaps you may be fortunate enough to be in Bombay next week at the end of the festival and witness the entire population of the city walk into the ocean and immerse their Ganesha statues in incoming waves.”
“Oh, and that? A moon? Or sun?” Pam pointed to four children carrying a large yellow papier-maché globe.
Vijay purred to himself. He welcomed the questions and hoped the train stop would be long and that this conversation would go on and on. Such voluptuous women were common in American movies, but never before had he had the good fortune to speak to one. This woman’s grace and pale beauty stirred his imagination. She seemed to have stepped out of the ancient erotic carvings of the Kama Sutra. And where might this encounter lead? he wondered. Could this be the life-changing event for which he had long sought? He was free, his garment factory had, by Indian standards, made him wealthy. His teenaged fiancée died of tuberculosis two years ago, and, until his parents selected a new bride, he was unencumbered.
“Ah, it is a moon the children hold. They carry it to honor an old legend. First, you must know that Lord Ganesha was renowned for his appetite. Note his ample belly. He was once invited for a feast and stuffed himself with desert pastries called laddoos. Have you eaten laddoos?”
Pam shook her head, fearing that he might produce one from his valise. A close friend had contracted hepatitis from a tea shop in India, and thus far she had heeded her physician’s advice to eat nothing but four-star-hotel food. When away from the hotel she had limited herself to food she could peel—mainly tangerines, hard-boiled eggs, and peanuts.
“My mother made wonderful coconut almond laddoos,” Vijay continued. “Essentially, they are fried flour balls with a sweet cardamom syrup—that sounds prosaic, but you must believe me when I say they are far more than the sum of their ingredients. But back to Lord Ganesha, who was so stuffed that he could not stand up properly. He lost his balance, fell, his stomach burst, and all the laddoos tumbled out.