Voices in the Night (20 page)

Approaching the Yellow Bridge
. A few days later, Gautama is walking on a path in the Park of Six Bridges. He is alone. In the near distance he catches sight of the Yellow Bridge, and as he recalls his recent stroll with Chanda an uneasiness comes over him. He can’t accuse himself of deliberately avoiding Chanda, but it’s true enough that he hasn’t sought out his friend in the old way. The estrangement puzzles him. The deep friendship that flows between them, the fierce closeness, the intimacy deeper than blood, the long nights of adolescence spent pouring out their souls—all this has come to seem oppressive to Gautama, who doesn’t want to walk beside a friend who glances at him anxiously, watches hungrily for signs, and observes him as one might observe a child leaning too far over a balustrade railing. Sometimes Chanda blurts out enigmatic half-questions that seem to hint at accusations or confessions. Gautama understands that he himself is partly to blame for this state of affairs, for lately
he has felt in himself a kind of inward hiddenness, which is bound to provoke the anxious scrutiny of a friend, to say nothing of that friend’s sense of injury. After all, to whom should Gautama turn, in his obscure trouble, if not to Chanda? But Chanda’s urgent concern doesn’t limit itself to charged looks and riddling utterances. Gautama can feel, beneath those looks, some deeper turbulence. Can Chanda be concealing something from him? On several occasions recently, the Prince has had the peculiar sensation that someone is watching from a hidden place, and he cannot prevent himself from imagining that this unseen watcher might be Chanda. As he steps onto the Yellow Bridge, he looks back suddenly at the path. With self-disdain, with remorse, he returns his gaze to the bridge and looks down at the clear water, through which he can see white pebbles and red sand.

A Tremor of Whiteness
. Chanda, walking along a path in the Park of Six Bridges, feels the smoothed earth press into his bare soles. He walks so quietly that he cannot hear the touch of his own feet on the path. Sometimes he stops, his body tense, his senses alert. Sometimes he picks up the pace. He crosses the Azure Bridge and continues along a path bordered on one side by a pond with wild geese and on the other by a grove of blossoming acacia trees. Sometimes, when the path turns, he sees a tremor of whiteness that disappears. Now the path turns again. Chanda follows the curve and stops—stops so completely that it’s as if he has come to a closed door. He does not breathe. Directly before him, on the Yellow Bridge, Gautama stands in his brilliant white dhoti and shawl, staring down at the Stream of Happiness. Chanda walks silently backward. He watches as the turn of the path gradually pulls the trees across the Prince, making him disappear.

The Ladder
. Gautama crosses the Yellow Bridge and strolls along a shady path under a canopy of branches. If only he were a pebble in
a stream! He tries to imagine himself as a pebble in a stream. He is cold and white and round and hard and still. The thought calms him. He wonders whether it is possible to be a discontented pebble in a stream. He imagines a pebble having dark thoughts in a stream. As the path begins to curve to the right, he thinks: My mind is absurd. I am absurd. He rounds the turn and sees ahead of him a high narrow ladder reaching up into the branches of an asoka tree. Near the top of the ladder stands a gaunt man, his face partly hidden by dark green leaves and pale orange blossoms. The man appears to be touching a leaf on a branch above his head. Beside his knees, on each side of the ladder rails, hangs a wooden basket. The man pulls the leaf from the branch, drops it into one basket, and removes from the other basket another leaf. With a needle and thread he carefully begins to attach the second leaf to the place where the first leaf hung. He does not look down as Gautama walks up to the ladder and stands there watching.

Chanda Continues on His Way
. In the middle of the Yellow Bridge, Chanda stops for a moment to look down at the clear stream. He wonders what drew Gautama’s attention, down there where one sees only smoothly flowing water, white pebbles, and red sand. His friend sees other things, he’s sure of it, but they lie within. Chanda crosses the bridge and continues along a sunny-and-shady path that stretches away beneath a canopy of interlaced branches. He walks slowly, listening for the possible sound of his bare soles against the smoothed earth, but he hears only birdsong. Chanda has trained himself to walk so quietly that he can bend over a bird pecking at the ground and pick up that bird in his hands. As he walks, he glances quickly over his shoulder, but no one is there. Is he foolish to imagine that the King is having him followed? The King, after all, is having his own son followed. Before him, where the path turns out of sight,
Chanda hears a clatter of distant cart wheels amidst the birdsong. He follows the turn of the path and stops abruptly. Gautama is standing beside a ladder, staring up. Chanda pauses, looks quickly about, and steps into the trees. The sound of cart wheels grows louder.

The Leaf Artist
. Moments later a two-wheeled cart comes clattering into view, drawn by a bare-chested young man whose knee-length white loincloth is decorated with images of green leaves. The cart is filled with leaves so brilliant in their greenness that they appear to be wet. Upon seeing the Prince, the young man falls to his knees and presses his forehead to the path. Gautama bids him rise. The young man explains that he is an assistant to the Leaf Artist—he points to the man at the top of the ladder—who has been ordered by the Park Overseer to make leaves of green silk in his workshop, so that they may replace all leaves in the Park of Six Bridges that are in danger of falling. A report concerning a fallen leaf has caused great agitation. Now the Leaf Artist is passing from tree to tree, inspecting the leaves and replacing weak or damaged ones with sturdy leaves of silk. Gautama asks how many leaves are replaced in the course of a single day. The assistant answers that he doesn’t know the precise number of leaves, but he can say that this is the third cartload of silk leaves he has delivered to the park this afternoon. At the top of the ladder the Leaf Artist, awakened from his trance of concentration, glances down. When he sees who is standing at the foot of the ladder, he turns sideways and bows low, very low—so low that for a moment it appears he will fall from the ladder and strike the ground at Gautama’s feet. Slowly he uncurls and returns to his task.

Gautama’s Knee
. Gautama returns from his walk in the Park of Six Bridges, enters his chamber, and sits on a floor mat. The afternoon
has not been a success. He feels certain he was being followed, but he doesn’t know why anyone should follow him as he takes a stroll in one of his parks. There are many things he does not know. He doesn’t know why a leaf falls from a tree. He doesn’t know why he is a man and not a pebble in a stream. He doesn’t know why he is unhappy. Does he know anything at all? He looks at his left knee. What does he know? He knows nothing. Does he even know that he has a knee? A man should know whether or not he has a knee. He asks himself why he thinks he knows he has a knee. He thinks he knows he has a knee because he perceives a particular shape and color. But what if his eyes are deceiving him? What if he’s asleep? Say he closes his eyes and imagines a knee. Is that knee real? Is the outer knee more real than the inner knee? When he opens his eyes, the imagined knee disappears. Is it possible that when his eyes are open, as they are now, he is still not awake? And if he should wake? It’s warm in his chamber. His right eyebrow itches slightly.

The Island of Desolation
. Accompanied by chariots festooned with crimson and white flowers, by royal elephants draped with necklaces of pearls, by soldiers with javelins and by guards with ceremonial swords, by courtiers, friends, musicians, dancing girls, and jugglers, Gautama stands beside Chanda in the princely chariot as they come within sight of the secret place. The soaring trellis-wall is the height of three elephants. At the arched doorway he turns, embraces Chanda, and stares back at the silks and swords flashing in the sun. He descends. A guard opens the door, closes it behind him. Gautama has entered a realm of dusk. Black trees with black leaves rise up on both sides of a white path. From the covered top of the vast enclosure, globed lanterns hang like small moons. The globe-light shines on the trunks and branches, which appear to be blocks of stone shaped into trees and finished with black lacquer. High above, birds in the branches sing plaintively. Are they carved
birds, there in the artful dark? The light of the round lanterns, the gloomy stone trees, the melancholy birdsong stir Gautama and fill him with a drowsy, vague excitement. He follows the path to the edge of a dark lake where black swans glide. Under the swans he can see the other swans, dreaming in the still water. In the middle of the lake he sees an island. As one swan drifts closer, Gautama realizes that it is a boat shaped like a swan. Under the boat-swan another boat-swan trembles slightly. An oarsman in a black robe beckons him aboard. Gautama sinks down among soft cushions as the black oars rise and dip like wings.

Chanda in Sunlight
. As Chanda returns in the chariot, where he stands holding the reins in brilliant sunlight, he recalls with particular pleasure the six hundred birds carved by the artisans and fitted with mechanisms that can produce sorrowful birdcalls. If his creation is as successful as those birds, three things will happen: his friend will achieve happiness, the King will be grateful, and life in the Three Palaces can continue undisturbed forever. Chanda feels the sun on his bare chest, the warm breeze on his shoulders. He breathes deep. He can feel his aliveness glowing in him like an inner sun. In his nostrils, sharp smells of green. In his forearms, the pull of the reins. To live, to breathe, to laugh among friends! For no particular reason, Chanda laughs aloud in the sun.

The Black Pavilion
. In the dusk of the enclosure the oarsman rows the black swan to the shore of the island. Under the swan-head the other oarsman draws in his oars. The Prince steps from the body of the swan onto white sand. It glimmers under the moon-globes. Before him he sees half a dozen crumbling pillars, which appear to be all that is left of a palace courtyard. He has never seen crumbling pillars before, and as he passes among them he is filled with a gentle,
sweet distress. Past the strange pillars he comes to a high cedarwood wall. The doorway is hung with a black silk curtain, behind which he hears the soft, dark notes of a flute. Gautama pushes aside the curtain and enters a clearing among high trees. In the center of the clearing stands a large black pavilion, with an entrance awning supported by poles. From the pavilion comes a flute melody that rises and slowly falls, rises higher and slowly falls. The notes are accompanied by sounds he has never heard before, sounds that remind him of wind in leaves, of water in distant fountains. Quietly he moves forward, as if drawn by whispering voices. He enters the pavilion. Young women dressed in translucent black silk lie languorously on couches with their faces turned to one side. Others sit on floor cushions with their shoulders slumped forward, their cheeks resting on their hands. Still others walk slowly with bowed heads. All the women are taking deep breaths and letting out long sighs. The intermingled sighs create the sound of a mournful breeze. Black jewels adorn their necks and wrists. Black flowers tremble in their hair. He can hear other soft sounds among the sighs: sharp intakes of nose-breath, small high throat-bursts. What are those sounds? Slowly Gautama makes his way into the lantern-lit dark. From somewhere come the rising and falling notes of an insistent flute. One young woman, almost a girl, is lying on her side on a row of floor cushions. She is staring at nothing with her large, unblinking eyes. Her body is half-sunk among the cushions, her cheek lies upon an outstretched arm, one wrist rests languidly on her upswept hip. As he draws closer, he is startled to see her eyes begin to shimmer. Lines of water run down her face. Gautama feels a warmth in his chest. A tender confusion comes over him as he sinks to his knees beside her and takes her limp hand in his hands.

Chanda Receives a Report
. For two days and two nights, specially trained Watchers concealed in the nearby woods observe the
arched doorway in the trellis-wall and send reports to Chanda that all is well. By the third morning, when a messenger announces that there has still been no sign of the Prince, Chanda can no longer suppress his joy. Gautama has chosen to remain within the enclosure. He has been drawn in by the melancholy light, the Lake of Gloom, the Island of Desolation, the Pavilion of Sorrowing Women. On the fifth day, Chanda visits the King, who rewards him with a silver chest filled with precious jewels. On the seventh day, Chanda detects in himself a faint unease. The plan is working not merely well, but supremely well—far better than he had dreamed possible. Now, Chanda knows that life isn’t in the habit of exceeding one’s dreams. He calms himself; his friend’s craving for melancholy scenes, the disappearance into the dark pleasures of tears and sighs, is precisely what Chanda foresaw. His error lay in underestimating the intensity of Gautama’s need. By the end of the ninth day, Chanda can no longer sleep. Has something happened to the Prince? He instructs the Watchers to make inquiries by means of the oarsman, who is in the pay of the King. Anxiously he awaits the report. It is possible that Gautama has fallen so deeply under the enchantment of sorrow that he no longer craves the pleasures of the sun. It’s equally possible that he has become sick and lacks the strength to return. But Gautama has never been sick in his life; he scarcely shows signs of tiredness after nights of excess that would leave most men weak with exhaustion. Can it be something else? Are the pavilion women, chosen by himself and one of the King’s most loyal advisers, entirely trustworthy? Is the Prince in danger? So deeply does Chanda sink into troubled meditation that he is startled to notice one of the three Night Watchers standing patiently in the chamber doorway.