STUART MITCHNER
231
glistening moistness of a fresh cut .
We land shaken but upright , the wind of the tunnel that coughed
us out still whistling in our ears. We have to brake fast to keep from
skidding off the edge of the fl at city Benares seems ro be until you
suddenly pop through a hole to find yourself staring straight down a
steep dream ofwide descending ledges , the brown river at the bottom ,
flowing with the hushed, softly hissing motion of a silent film . There it
is , the Indian hush manifested in a river , the other shore lapped in a
dusk that drifts , rises and settles like the brew of the water.
Ray has his nose in the air , one hand up , fingering the atmosphere
thoughtfully , as though it were textured with messages. " Hey- ,"
taking a great long head-rolling snort of air , " - that 's it! "
" What? "
"Sperm . It 's the same smell. " Ray signs his diagnosis with a
Shakespearean flourish, arms out , palms up , wizard sleeves gaping
around his wrists .
A croak from the river answered him-"
Sahib! Sahib!"
-the
voice contracting scale, bluffs and ledges collapsing with imaginary
miles of space .
" Ey, sahib!"
We were closer ro the water than we
realized , but not close enough yet to see whoever was calling. The voice
awakened us to other sounds , chanted prayers , gaggings and spittings ,
and the disjointed tootings and dtummings of musicians hidden
somewhere behind the dark hooded cliff-faces of the temples looking
over our shoulders . Nothing we heard had a visible source. I imagined
eyes in tower galleries studying every unsteady step of our descent.
Something moved in the haze down by the water.
" Eck rupiya,
sahib!"
Humpbacked , beckoning and buzzing, he danced in and out
of wet shadows, flirtatiously, teasing perception . "All the river,
sahib!"
He came to meet us , hunched but not humpbacked, rubbing
his hands like Mosca rubbing his feelers , fierce with calculations . " You
see everything,
sahib!
the butning,
sahib!"
We edged into the static of his radius like country boys hooked on
the shimmy of the skin show barker's index finger. He jabbed at the
river with both hands , his broken leer implying that when he lifted the
curtain of haze we would see a floating , three-ring Kama Surra circus
that would finally consume our most passionate fantasies .
"All,
you
see
all
the river!" He generated irresistible frictions , the secret of his
technique cooking in the quick hot friction of his hands, which he
