Читать книгу Black Light - Talbot Mundy - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Joe stared. The Jupiter Chemical Works, of which his mother owned control by virtue of a trust deed drawn with much more foresight and determination than the Constitution of the United States, is notorious and he understood that perfectly. He was used to seeing his name in newspapers that denounced him one day as a wealthy malefactor and the next day, when he made a donation to something or other, praised him as a pioneer in the forefront of civilization—so used to it that he had ceased to laugh. He had ceased, too, to concern himself about it, having long ago learned that the son of a trust deed drawn by his mother's lawyers in her favor is as helpless as the husband of a reigning queen. He could not even hire and fire the men who wrecked the company's rivals, bribed and blackmailed politicians, cheated law and obliged him to take public blame for what they did, while his mother banked the dividends. He understood the hatred and the flattery of crowds, and could even sympathize. But it puzzled him that a nearly naked Yogi, all those thousands of miles away from New York, should know his business. It was like a slap in the face.

"Why do you call me that?" he demanded.

"The strongest line on your forehead is that of Jupiter," the Yogi answered. "It is long, strong, straight—and it is deepest when you smile, which is as it should be. But you were born with the rising sign of Gemini. If it had been Aries, no mother, nor any woman, nor any combination of men, however masterful, could have held you fettered. Even as it is, you are no woman's plaything."

Joe shrugged his shoulders. He was not his mother's plaything, simply and only because she did not know how to play. She had no more sense of fun in her than Clytemnestra; no more lyrical delight in unreality than a codfish. Owner of banks and trusts and factories, all did her bidding or else learned the discontent of being toads under a roller.

And he could swear on his oath, as a man who had tried it, that astrology was stark, unmitigated bunk. He had studied it, using Newton's method. For his own amusement he had tried it on the rhythmic rise and fall of stock exchange quotations, and he found it rather less reliable than broker's tips, or than the system with which idiots lose their money at Monte Carlo.

"Smile!" said the Yogi. "Always smile when we ignorant folk offend your honor's wisdom!"

Hawkes intervened. As showman for the night he felt his pride involved again. "Say," he objected, "has some one fed you lemons? Here's a gentleman who's acted generous. He's paid his money, no matter who you gave it to. Now act honest and do what he paid for. Tell his fortune."

"Do you demand that?" asked the Yogi, staring at Beddington.

"Tell hers," he answered. The ayah was clutching his ankles again.

"I will tell it to you," said the Yogi. "It was you who paid, and it is true I accepted the money, although I did not keep it. Should you in turn tell her what I tell you, that is your responsibility. I advise—I warn you not to, that is all."

"How in hell can I tell her? I don't know her language."

"Telling what should not be told—and hell—are as cause and effect," said the Yogi. "She is a fool, that ayah. You will look far for a fool who has greater faith and charity. But who can make a fool wise?"

"Are you wise?" Joe asked him.

"No," said the Yogi, "but wiser than she is—and wiser than you, or you would not have asked me. That fool—that charitable, faithful fool desires to know what shall become of her child, who now no longer is a child, but full grown and aware of the blood in her veins, and of her sex, and of the sin of inertia. A riddle is better than speech misunderstood, so I will speak in riddles. This shall happen to her: a war within herself—a worse than ever soldiers wage with bayonets. She shall be torn between the camel of her obstinacy, the horse of her ambition, the mule of her stupidity, and the elephant of her wisdom. When those four have pulled her enough apart, a devil may enter into her, or ten devils—or perhaps a benign spirit —who knows? It depends on at least a hundred thousand million influences, each one of which in former lives she wove into her character. Do you understand that? No, of course you don't. Nevertheless, I have answered you. So go away and think about it. Doubt it—deny it—believe it—mock—swear—take or leave it—it is all one to me. I have told you the truth."

Chandri Lal was whispering to the ayah. Apparently he knew English— possibly enough to misinterpret what he heard. At any rate he understood the ayah and her hunger for information, which was hardly keener than his own craving for money. She had money.

"Heavenborn," he began, "Holy one!" Then, seeing that the Yogi took no notice of him, he addressed Hawkes in the vernacular. Hawkes, nothing loath, interpreted:

"He says," said Hawkes, "that ayah wants to know, shall her child be a queen—a royal ranee?"

"Tell her," suggested Beddington.

"She can be," said the Yogi. "I have cast her horoscope. If she is brave, she can be a queen over herself. She has resources and a struggle is impending. Nay—I will say no more. I am in debt to that fool woman for necessities. Shall I repay her with speech that will stick like a barb in her heart? Shall I use my wisdom to unbridle folly? Nay, nay. There is a time for silence."

He relapsed into silence as solid as concrete. He exuded silence. He was its image, its expression. Even the ayah ceased from importunity, since even she in her hysteria could recognize finality. She began to abuse Hawkes, including Joe within the scope of a tempest of words.

"What does she say?"

"She accuses you and me, sir, of having stopped that Yogi just when he was coming to the point. She says for you to take your money back, it's bad-luck money."

Joe turned away. He felt he had had enough of unreality for one night, yet he grudged returning to the real. The ascending moon, grown pale, was whitening walls and blackening the shadows; even he himself felt like a bone-white ghost, the more so because his foot-fall made no sound in the dry dust. He knew that to talk to his mother would produce a sort of psychic anticlimax that he could not explain, and for which she would have no sympathy. It was at such moments that he knew he hated her; the hatred was kin to fear; the fear, if not prenatal, something she had fastened on him with her will when he was a suckling. At the age of eight and twenty a man had no right, he knew, to be under any one's dominance. He had an iron will of his own; he was notoriously uncontrollable by any one except his mother. Her stronger will, compelling his, was what enabled her, unseen, to guide the destinies of interwoven trusts so intricate that even governments were helpless to prevent.

It was only at night, and at times like this when life seemed like a dream, that he was really conscious of the grudge he owed his mother and of a secret sense of shame that he must obey her always. True, he had often resisted her. He could withstand her tantrums. The bludgeoning abuse with which she browbeat servants, secretaries and even the firm's attorneys to obedience, made no impression on him. He could laugh. It was when she was quiet and determined, when she grew kittenish and motherly by turns, and above all when she pretended to need his advice that he grew aware of the numbness somewhere in his conscience and an impulse to obey her that was irresistible. He had long ago ceased to attempt to resist that.

It had been only to oblige his mother that he undertook this idiotic search for some one who, for all the proof he had, had not been born. They had nothing but rumor to go on, and a twenty-year rumor at that. It was one of his mother's incredible lapses into sentimentality that she mistook for philanthropic zeal.

Such thoughts flash through a man's mind in a moment. Habit, as it were, presented them en masse, along with their product in the shape of disgust and an impulse to escape from them. Activity of mind or body was the only possible way of escape—learn, discover, do something—now, swiftly. That accounted for Joe's sudden forays at a tangent after odds and ends of stray clues into other people's business—swift questions that made some men think him an inquisitive butter-in; while others thought the habit indicated some form of degeneracy, as if he could not concentrate on one thing at a time.

"Why did you hit that Poonchi?" he demanded, turning disconcertingly on Hawkes. "Who is he?"

Hawkes resented it, yet hardly cared to show resentment—yet at any rate. Only those who meet millionaires every day of their lives understand that there is nothing to be gained by yielding to their arrogance; and besides, as a soldier, the habit of answering all questions promptly was as well developed in him as evasiveness was; he could answer questions fluently and instantly but keep the essential information to himself.

"A spy of the Rajah of Poonch-Terai."

"Has he any right here?"

"Damned if I know. A man's rights in this country are mostly what he can get away with. If he'd been up to no mischief he'd have hit back, he wouldn't have run."

"Have you any idea what sort of mischief?"

"That's not difficult to guess, sir."

"Guess for me. I'm curious."

"Sir, when a man lurks in the shadows where he's uninvited, and runs when he's hit, you can bet he was after either plunder or a woman. Where's the plunder hereabouts? He'd have hit back, wouldn't he, if it had been his own woman or a woman for himself that he was after? Q. E. D. he was a pimp; it'd be sinful not to chase him off the lot."

"Did you say he belongs to the Rajah of Poonch-Terai? But Poonch-Terai is several hundred miles from here."

"Maybe, sir. But the Rajah isn't. He's what they call a Maharajah— a nineteen-gun salute man so rich he needn't trouble himself to pay his debts."

"You mean that spy was trying to get women for him—for his harem?"

"Draw your conclusions. Why not? They're always doing it. The Rajahs haven't much else to think about. They've other folks to collect the taxes for them and rule their district. They can't play polo and get drunk all the time. They pretty soon get weary of a woman, so they're always wanting new ones; and if there happens to be one they can't get, that's the one woman in the universe they've got to have."

"And that's why you're here?"

"Me and those Bengali troopers."

Joe smiled. Hawkes stiffened.

"Which of you loves the lady?"

Soldiers have to learn to sweat their tempers; only generals may grow apoplectic; Hawkes, as a sergeant, grinned appropriate complaisance and instantly made up his mind to take the one revenge available to a poor man faced by a rich one's impudence. He could bleed him. He could act the sycophant and make it pay. The point Joe had missed, and that Hawkes knew he had missed, was a certain vaguely evasive element of mystic chivalry connected with that night-watch by a British sergeant, several Indian troopers and, to make the mixture triply unconventional, a Yogi. What Joe had probably forgotten, if he ever knew it, was that the poor have a way of despising the rich for what they regard as ignorant ill-manners.

"Did you wish me to look for that girl you spoke about, sir?

"Yes. You've one chance in a hundred million."

"Make it worth my while, sir."

"Very well. A thousand if you find her."

"A thousand pounds, sir—right-o, that's fair enough." Beddington had meant rupees; Hawkes knew that. "I'll have to hire a spy or two as well, sir, and I can't afford to pay them out of pocket. I suppose you'll pay legitimate expenses? If you can let me have some money now, sir— ?"

Joe gave him three hundred rupees in paper money.

"Thanks, sir. I'll account for it, of course. The district collector asked me to bring you up to his bungalow afterward. If you'll wait half a minute while I explain to those troopers, I'll see you on your way, sir."

But Joe had sensed the intention to lay siege to his pocketbook. The rich like being "worked," when they are aware of it, about as keenly as eels like being skinned alive. Generosity is one thing, submission to extortion something else.

"No thanks. I know the way. I'll walk. Will you tell the sais to take my horse home?"

"Very well, sir. Do you mind telling Mr. Cummings that I offered? Otherwise he might not understand."

Joe nodded, too displeased to trust himself to speak. Cummings had ordered him spied on, had he? What did the ass suspect him of? Souvenir hunting? Sacrilege? "I wonder," he thought, "who invented the lie that Government service develops genius? They're most of 'em pay-roll parasites, who'd be a failure in any other walk in life—grafters or else incompetents —or both."

The midnight of a wave of discontent submerged him. He was far more of a poet than a pirate—hated piracy, from too intimate knowledge of his mother's methods—hated most its subtler intricacies—liked open black-jack methods better as more honest. In such moods a poet is gloomier than any other mortal; and the gloomiest of poets is one who is tied to the chariot wheels of a Jupiter Chemical Works and a bank, by the spidery threads of a trust deed. Worse yet, when the spider in the center of it is his mother, because he must rebel, in despair, against nature herself who has ruled that a filial instinct shall be sometimes overwhelming, and maternal instinct not invariably sweet with the odor of selflessness.

"Damn!" he remarked aloud, and turned toward the Yogi for a last stare. Suddenly he strode into the pool of moonlight in front of the rock where the Yogi sat apparently in meditation. "Old Man—or ought I to call you Holy One?"

"Like unto like," said the Yogi. "Call me what you feel like calling me, that I may know you better. What you see in me is a reflection of that part of you that you desire to hide from others; the remainder of me is, to you, invisible."

"Be generous then. Show me some of it."

"I can't," said the Yogi. "Can I educate you in a minute? It has taken me not less than a million lives on earth to learn the little that I know now. That little does not include the art of changing you instantly into a seer."

"I'm blue," said Joe. "I'm as blue as a hungry nigger. You seem to enjoy life. How do you do it?"

"If you can see that I enjoy it, that is something."

"Come on, take a peep into my future. I'm about desperate. I feel like putting a bullet into my brain. Nevertheless, I know I won't do that."

"Are you afraid to?"

"No. If I were afraid I'd do it, I'd so despise myself for being afraid. I can't see anything ahead for me but more and more melancholy—more and more of a kind of existence I hate, with less and less chance to escape it. To put it bluntly I'm in hell."

"O man from Jupiter!"

"That's what you called me before. What do you mean exactly?"

"You would not understand if I told you. In part, I mean this: Jupiter —Gemini rising: a disturbing influence. You are in hell, to make you boil and put forth. You are a thunder-bolt that might, indeed, be quenched amid a seething sea of trouble; but no umbrella nor any information can withstand you. You are an influence that will burst into another's life. And you will raise that other to an equal height with yours, or you will struggle upward to that other's height, or you will strangle yourself and that other, like two camels caught in one rope."

"When?"

"You are at the threshold."

"I feel as if I had my back toward hope and ambition and were wandering off into a wilderness."

"You are an egg that is about to hatch. The tight shell yields."

"Yogi, I feel like Orestes. You know who he was? He slew his mother."

"That Greek legend is a symbolism and an allegory. Orestes destroyed a tyranny, not a woman; and the hounds of his conscience were changed into heralds of happiness."

"But Clytemnestra died," said Joe.

"As I might also, did I interfere with thunderbolts," the Yogi answered. "Listen to me: Darkness is the womb whence Light is born. No-hope is the matrix out of which Hope burgeons. Discontent is a growing pain; it is the pangs of roots imprisoned in clefts of a rock that shall crush them or be burst asunder. Cowards cry out and shrink and their roots die under them. But strong souls reach into the Silence for more energy, though it brings more pain; they seek relief from pain by bursting that which hurts. It is they whose branches ultimately reach the sky and become a cool bower such as the birds of Wisdom love."

"Am I a coward?" Joe asked.

"You have been. What you are now is your own affair. And what you shall be is the outcome of what you do with what you are; it is the consequence of what you are and what you do. You have my leave to go and leave me to my laughter at the simpleness of things."