Voices in the Night (22 page)

Flight
. The Leaf Artist lifts a wing and fastens it with straps of silk rope to Gautama’s left arm. He lifts the second wing and fastens it to Gautama’s right arm. The wings are heavier than Gautama has anticipated, and as he moves his arms slowly forward and back he thinks that it is like moving his arms in deep water. He follows the Master from the pavilion into the darkness of the forest. On shadowy tree trunks fatter than the legs of elephants he sees patches of moonlit moss. He feels a wing scrape against bark and draws his arms close to his sides. In a sudden streak of moonlight an edge of dark wing glows like white fire. The trees disappear. In the brilliant clearing he sees his long shadow stretching away. The sides of the shadow crack open: dark shadow-wings sweep out. The Master leads him across the clearing, which slopes up at one side to form a steep hill. At the top of the hill the Master examines the wings, tugs at the feathers, tightens the silk straps. He repeats his instructions. Gautama looks down at the clearing, at the woods beyond, at the dark rampart rising high above the world. He swings his swan-arms back and forth. He thinks: I am a Swan of the Night. The Master gravely nods. Gautama begins to run down the hillside toward the clearing, lifting and lowering his wings. Massive trees rise up on both sides. He feels like a child, a fool. The clumsy wings are holding him back, he can feel the ground pressing up against his feet. He remembers an afternoon in childhood when he saw a large bird rise slowly from a lake. Never will his feet leave the grip of the earth. He runs, he runs. Something is wrong. The trees are sinking down. Are the trees sinking down?
He can no longer feel the slap of the path. The great wings lift him higher. He is above the clearing, above the trees. Before him rises the rampart. He is a swan-god, he is Lord of the Night Sky, Prince of Stars. He can feel his blood beating in his wings as he flies upward toward the top of the wall.

Yasodhara’s Dream
. Yasodhara dreams that she is walking in a sunny courtyard. Across the courtyard she sees her husband, walking alone. She calls out to him. He smiles his boyish, enchanting smile and begins to walk toward her. The sun shining on his face and arms fills her with warmth, as if he were bringing her the light of the sun. Midway between them, on the courtyard grass, she notices a white object. When Gautama draws near it, he bends over and picks it up. He stands with it in his hands as she comes up to him. She sees that it is a white bowl. He is holding the bowl in both hands, staring at it as if he expects it to burst into speech. She stands beside him, waiting for him to look at her. “My lord,” she says, but he does not hear her. She tugs at his arm, but he does not feel her. Wearily she sinks to her knees and leans her head against his leg.

The Other Side
. Below him Gautama sees the moonlit treetops, the clearing, and the little Master on the hill. Above him soars the rampart. On the moonlit wall he sees the gigantic shadow of his lifting and falling wings. He imagines the wing-shadows rising higher and higher until they reach the top of the wall and suddenly vanish. And then? What lies on the other side? Gautama remembers the boyhood chariot ride with his father: “Nothing is there. Everything is here.” He remembers philosophical conundrums posed by his teachers. If you draw a line around Allness, what lies on the other side? If you do not draw a line around Allness, does it never end? Now he is nearing
the limit of the known world. And beyond? The swan-wings are heavy, but Gautama is strong. As he approaches the top of the wall, he hears a sound as of rattling or low rumbling. Above him, he notices a narrow aperture that runs along the wall near the top. From the aperture emerges a broad and finely meshed net, stretched between two horizontal poles. Below him, a second net emerges from the wall. The upper net drops and entangles his wings. He thrashes helplessly as he falls into the lower net. Slowly, entrapped in a cocoon of netting, he sinks toward the trees.

Chanda Reflects
. As the nets enclose Gautama and gradually lower him to earth, Chanda watches from the high branches where he has concealed himself. He continues peering through the leaves as the Leaf Artist hurries down the hillside, across the clearing, and into the woods to assist the fallen Prince. When Chanda is certain that his friend is unharmed, he returns to the Summer Palace and sends a messenger to the King, who, as Chanda well knows, has followed the entire adventure with close attention. Immediately after Gautama’s first visit to the artisans’ quarters, the Leaf Artist began to meet regularly with the King. In the presence of Chanda, the King instructed the Master to prepare the swan wings. The next day, he ordered royal guards to penetrate the hollow passages of the rampart and climb the inner stairways in order to operate the two concealed net-mechanisms, installed many years ago for the purpose of foiling foreign invaders. Chanda passes a sleepless night. In the morning he makes his way to the Park of Six Bridges and sits under an acacia tree at the side of a stream. What kind of man has he become? He has always thought of himself as a loyal friend, watching anxiously over Gautama’s happiness. Yet lately he can think of himself only as an instrument of his friend’s unhappiness, a traitor and spy who serves no one but the King. It’s true that the King loves his son dearly and
desires nothing but his happiness, so long as that happiness is of the kind that embraces the world and its delights. But Gautama can no longer surrender himself to those delights. Or is it, rather, that the small world of the Three Palaces is no longer large enough for the restless son of a mighty King? Chanda sees again the great wings struggling in the net and turns his inward sight away. The world within the world is too small for a man with a restless heart. He must pass to the other side of the rampart, he must confront the great world in all its splendor. Of course: the other side. There’s no time to waste.

Languor
. Gautama speaks to no one of his night adventure, which soon comes to seem no more than a summer dream. How likely is it, after all, that he rose like a great bird above the trees to the top of the rampart, one summer night when the moon was a white swan in a blue lake? But ever since his return to everyday life, a strangeness has settled over things. When, standing in the archers’ field, he pulls back the bowstring, he feels the bending of the bow and the ripple of tension in his arm, but at the same time he has the sense that he is remembering this moment, which already took place long ago: the sun shining on the wood of the arrow, the iron drum in the distance, the rough bowstring sliding along his forearm, his hair flowing over his shoulders. When, at night, he visits Yasodhara in her chamber and stares deep into her eyes, he feels that he is looking back at her from a future so distant that it is like whatever lies beyond the line drawn around Allness. When he laughs with Chanda, when he walks alone in the Park of Six Bridges or the Bower of Quiet Delights, when he observes his hand slipping beneath the transparent silk that reveals and conceals the thighs of a concubine, he is moved in the manner of a man who, walking along a path, suddenly recalls a moment from his childhood. One afternoon, bending over a pond to examine the water-grass growing beneath the surface, Gautama sees his face gazing
up at him from the water. The reflection appears to be resting below the surface of the pond. At once he imagines the face straining to see him clearly but seeing him only through the silken water, which, however clear and undisturbed it may be, remains between the face and what it wishes to see like the pieces of colored silk that hang in the palace windows. There is a quietness in things, a gentle remoteness. At times he can feel the edges of his lips beginning to form a smile, without accomplishing a motion that might be called a smile, as if the act of smiling required of him a concentration, an unremitting energy of attention, that he can no longer summon.

The King Makes Up His Mind
. The King is bitterly disappointed in Chanda. Not only has the elaborate and costly plan of attracting the Prince to the Island of Desolation failed entirely, but the failure has led to his son’s rebellion and the attempted flight over the rampart. At the same time, the King feels beholden to Chanda, who oversaw the movements of the hidden guards and the testing of the nets in the wall. More than any other person, Chanda, whatever his faults, is responsible for the safe return of his son. The thought of the Prince fills the King with anxiety. His son is withdrawing from the world of rich pleasures into some dubious inner realm that can only unfit him for kingship. And the King is beginning to feel his age: just the other night, rising from dinner, he experienced a slight dizziness that forced him to rest for a moment with both hands on the table, while faces turned to him with sharp looks. The kingdom has never been stronger, but enemies are pressing on the borders and will take advantage of any weakness, any indecisiveness. Is it possible that by shielding his son from knowledge of the world he has encouraged the very tendency toward inwardness he was trying to prevent? The thought is inescapable as he walks with Chanda in the Garden of Seven Noble Pleasures and listens skeptically to the latest plan.
Chanda proposes that Gautama be allowed to ride out beyond the ramparts in order to behold the glory of the realm over which he will one day rule. The route will be carefully chosen in advance. Gautama will ride through leafy alleys and make his way past the mansions of noblemen toward the outskirts of the city. The world, in its vastness and variety, will thrill his soul. He will understand what it means to be the future ruler of a glorious kingdom. The plan strikes the King as dangerous. He can command every motion, every smile and footfall, every budding leaf, within the little world of the Three Palaces, but beyond the ramparts the large world streams away. There, things are so little subject to meticulous supervision that entire trees fall down whenever they like. What if the Prince, who has always been protected from the harshness of life, should see something that disturbs him? What if the great, teeming world dizzies him and drives him more fiercely inward? The King rejects the proposal brusquely, passes his hand over his eyes, and uneasily agrees, on condition that ten thousand servants prepare the route by sweeping the roads clean and removing from view all unpleasant sights.

The Eastern Gate
. At dawn the Eastern Gate swings open: the two halves of the Inner Gate and the two halves of the Outer Gate. Preceded by a thousand chariots and five thousand horsemen, Gautama rides beside Chanda in a gold chariot drawn by two white horses glittering with emeralds and rubies. Everything stands out sharply: the broad well-swept path, the towering mimosa trees hung with silk banners, the flash of a sword blade against the brown gleam of a horse’s flank. Deep among the trees he sees, rising like a vision or a painted image on a wall, a nobleman’s mansion with balustrades and turrets. As the progression advances, people begin to appear on both sides of the road, which leads to the outskirts of the city on the river. Gautama sees glistening black hair with red and orange flowers, a
child’s knuckles like pebbles in a stream. He can feel his senses bursting open. The world is a torrent. Beauty is a brightness that burns the eyes. If he reaches out his hand, he’ll gather in his palm the sky, the jeweled horses, the broad path lined with glowing faces. He wants to swallow the world. He wants to eat the world with his eyes. Each blade of grass at the side of the road stands out like a sword. Beside a brilliant yellow robe he notices a dark shape in the grass. He orders Chanda to halt the chariot. It is some kind of animal—an animal with hands. Gautama steps down from the chariot. The creature is an animal-man, seated at the side of the path. There is no hair on the top of its head, though long white hair-strands fall along the sunken cheeks. Its eyes are dull and muddy, the skin of its face hangs from the bone. The creature’s fingers, spread on its knees, look like bird claws. In the half-open mouth, Gautama sees a single brown tooth. An ugly odor, harsher than stable smells, rises like steam. Gautama turns to Chanda, who remains standing in the chariot. “What is this creature?” He sees fear in Chanda’s eyes.

What Chanda Knows
. Chanda knows that it is still possible to deceive Gautama, but he also knows that he has come to the end of lying. His answer will provoke an outburst of ferocious questions, which he is determined to answer truthfully. The answers will trouble his friend, whose eyes are already darkening. Gautama will turn back to the palace grounds and shut himself away. He will speak to no one. How can it have happened? The road was swept clean, the woods trimmed and painted, the houses carefully searched for the elderly, the sickly, and the deformed. Wouldn’t it be better to say that the creature is a great insect that makes its home in roadside grass? Wouldn’t it be kinder to describe it as a monster captured from a distant kingdom, where men live on the floors of lakes? Chanda sighs, looks directly into his friend’s eyes, and says: “That is an old man.”
Old age is not allowed in the world of the Three Palaces. He will have to explain everything to his friend, who is still a child, in some ways. Gautama is looking hard at him. Chariot wheels shine in the sun.

The Southern Gate
. Gautama orders Chanda to turn back from the procession and reenter the Eastern Gate. For seven days and seven nights he sits under the kimsuka tree by the fountain in the Bower of Quiet Delights and broods over the dark shape at the side of the road. The Old Man is within him: he is that man. His son is that man. That man dwells in the blood of his wife, in the blood of all beautiful women. How could he not have known? He has always known. He has known and not known. He has not known but he has known. On the morning of the eighth day he rises and seeks out Chanda. He will ride out again; he is not afraid. Together they ride through the Southern Gate. Gautama remembers how everything stood out sharply when he set forth through the Eastern Gate, and he longs to be wakened from his dark dream by the fierce brightness of the world. In the distance he can see spires and towers shimmering in a blue haze. On both sides of the road stand royal guards, who cheer him on his way. As he greets one guard, who is separated from the next by an arm’s length, Gautama notices someone seated on the ground between them. He stops the chariot, dismounts, and stands looking down at a young man as thin as a child. His eyes are clouded. His breath sounds wet. The young man is trembling and groaning in the sun. A greenish liquid flows from his nose and mouth. His leg is yellow with urine. Gautama turns violently to Chanda, who does not lower his eyes. Chanda says: “That is a sick man.”