Pp. 27-30*

To exist or not to exist

Through no fault of my own I had landed in a paradox. I had just started my life, my fictional life, but at the same time I was in my late sixties or early seventies.

When I entered the mosque, I entered a story, titled A Passage to India and written in 1924 by Edward Morgan Forster. It was his fifth and last novel. I do not know Edward Morgan Forster very well and I do not know how well he knows me. But I do know a little about his writing. In 1927 he wrote Aspects of the Novel. Two chapters, III and IV, are devoted to characters.

Mr. Forster distinguishes between characters in life and characters in fiction. The main facts for real people in real life, he says, are birth, food, sleep, love and death, but the main fact for fictional people, people in novels, is their preoccupation with human relationships.

I think it depends upon one's point of view. From my point of view, the fictional point of view, the main facts of my life, too, are the physiological facts: birth, food, sleep, love (I think Mr. Forster means sex, but finds it too explicit to write down) and death. Naturally, human relationships, including love, are important as well, but I think it is Mr. Forster who his preoccupied with them, not me.

Mr. Forster also distinguishes between 'flat' characters and 'round' characters. This distinction is often quoted in literary theories. Flat characters are types or caricatures. They are constructed round a single quality. Round characters are, well, not flat. They have more qualities (the more qualities, the rounder they are). The flattest character can be expressed in one sentence. A round character is capable of surprising you in a convincing way, Mr. Forster says.

I think that flat characters and round characters are not just Aspects of the Novel, they are aspects of real life as well. In real life too there are people whose character can be expressed in one sentence. And people you can tell whole stories about.

(Meanwhile I do hope I am surprising you in a convincing way).

Further, Mr. Forster says that all characters, real and fictional, have a 'hidden life', a life of dreams and passions, joys and sorrows. The novelist makes visible the hidden life of his or her characters, while the hidden lives of real people remain invisible, as there is no one to spill the beans.

True. But I think there is only one difference between characters in real life and characters in fiction: characters in real life exist and characters in fiction don't. There is no difference in flatness or roundness, nor in what counts as main facts of life. There is just one aspect that makes a difference: to exist or not to exist.

Pp. 23-27*

Barefoot steps

I told Ronny and Adela about my meeting with the doctor. Suddenly Ronny cried out: 'Good gracious! Not a Mohammedan?' He started questioning me.

'He called you in the mosque? How? Impudently? So he said something about your shoes? He asked you to take them off? It's an old trick, you know. I wish you hadn't taken them off. You oughtn't to have answered him.'
He sounded agitated, but after a while he calmed and pointed at the river below us.
'There's your Ganges. And that's the way the dead bodies float, from Benares to Chandrapore', he added.
'Dead bodies?', I asked.
'You won't see many of them here', he said. The crocodiles won't let them get this far.'
'What a terrible river!', I said. 'But what a wonderful river also', I thought

At the bungalow Ronny continued his questioning. But when I said that the doctor had offered to show me the Minto Hospital he seemed relieved and said that his name must be Aziz and that he was quite all right, nothing suspicious about him. I was puzzled. Although Ronny hadn't changed, he said things I never would have expected of him.

The heat and the conversation had made me tired. We said goodnight. In my room, I wanted to hang up my cloak, but there was a wasp at the tip of the peg. It had long yellow legs and seemed asleep. Where did it come from? Suddenly I was wide awake. Since my encounter with the doctor, I had been questioning myself. I had been trying to find out where I came from, and how I got here. And with 'here' I don't mean India or Chandrapore, but this story.

When I stepped into it (at page 14 of the 1979 Penguin edition) I was an elderly lady already. I had three children, lost two husbands — I had a history, a life. The doctor in the mosque had said that at first he thought I was a ghost. But when he called at me I had responded as a living person, a real human being. At the same time I somehow knew that my barefoot steps in the mosque were my first steps in this life and that this life was a fictional life. And that Chandrapore was a fictional village with a cardboard mosque.

Pp. 19-23*

The earth’s mirror

When the National Anthem was played, we all rose from our chairs. Ronny offered me a drink, but I had had enough drinks. I had drinks all the time. Adela said she wanted to see the real India.

‘Try seeing Indians’, I heard someone say.
‘Who was that’, Adela asked. The speaker had vanished quickly.
‘Our schoolmaster – Government College’, was the curt answer.
All remained silent for a while.

I recalled my meeting with the doctor. What was he doing in the mosque? Was he mourning? After Anthony’s death I visited the church very often. I had only Ronny, three years old at the time. Ralph and Stella were much older when their father died, but still living at home. I think people go to churches and mosques when they want to feel small. They want to be lifted up, like children.

‘As if anyone could avoid seeing them’, said Mrs. Lesley.
‘I have not spoken to an Indian since landing. Except to my servant’, said Adela.
‘Lucky you’, Mrs. Lesley said.
‘I have seen a great deal of natives when I was a nurse, before my marriage’, another woman said, ‘so I know the truth about Indians. One’s only hope is to hold aloof.’
‘Even from one’s patients?’, Adela said.
‘Well, the kindest thing one can do to a native is to let him die’, said Mrs. Callendar.
‘How if he went to heaven?’, I asked.
‘He can go were he likes as long as he doesn’t come near me’, the woman who had been a nurse said. ‘They give me the creeps.’
‘Do you really want to meet the Indian?’, Mr. Turton asked Adela. ‘It can easily be fixed up. You can practically see any type you like. I know the people of the Government and the landowners, Heaslop can get hold of the barrister crew, Fielding can show you some teachers.’
‘I only want to meet Indians whom you come across socially, as your friends’, Adela said.
‘Well, we don’t come across them socially’, he laughed.

The party then broke up, everyone went to his or her bungalow. Ronny walked us to his house. The moon was right above our heads. She looked beautiful. In the mosque I had seen her in the mirror of the water, but here she herself seemed to mirror the earth and what was on it. She was so much more vivid here than she was in England!

When we turned around the corner I saw the mosque, tiny and far away.
‘That’s were I have been’, I said.
‘Been there when?’, Ronny asked.
‘Between the acts.’
‘But mother, you can’t do that sort of thing.’
‘Can’t I?’
‘Not here. It’s not done. There are snakes, for one thing.’
‘Yes, the young man said so.’
‘You meet a young man in a mosque and you didn’t tell me’, Adela said.
‘I was going to tell you, but I forgot. My memory is deplorable.’
‘Was he nice?’
‘Very nice.’

Pp. 17-18*

The other side of the moon

The doctor walked me back to the Club. He asked me if I cared to see the Minto Hospital in the morning. ‘Thank you’, I said, ‘I have seen it already.’

‘I suppose the Civil Surgeon took you’, he said.
‘Yes, and Mrs. Callendar.’
‘Ah!’, he said, ‘a very charming lady.’
I had to think about that.
‘Possibly’, I said, ‘when one knows her better.’
‘You didn’t like her?’

‘Well’, I said, ‘she was certainly intending to be kind, but I did not find her exactly charming.’
He burst out: ‘She has just taken my tonga without asking my permission! That indeed is not charming! And major Callendar interrupts me night after night when I am dining with my friends and I go at once and he is not there and not even a message! But what can I do? I am just a subordinate, my time is of no value, and Mrs. Callendar takes my carriage and cuts me dead… You understand me! Oh, if others were like you!’
‘I don’t think I understand people that well’, I said. ‘I only know whether I like or dislike them.’
‘Then you are an Oriental’, he said.

I liked the doctor. He was Mrs. Callendar’s opposite: charming without the intention of being kind. I wished I was a member so that I could invite him into the Club. But he told me that Indians were not allowed there.

Cousin Kate was in the third act when I entered the Club. The heat was immense now and only one electric fan was working. I went to the billiard-room, where I found Adela.
‘Where have you been?’, she asked. And then, with a smile: ‘Did you catch the moon in the Ganges?’
‘I went to the mosque’, I said. ‘I saw the moon, but I did not catch it. I wonder if I saw the same side of it as we see it in England. Let me think — no we see the same side over here.’
‘And we aren’t even seeing the other side of the world over here’, said Adela.
She was right, I thought. But who knew what adventures were awaiting us?

Pp. 14-16*

The moon in the mosque

I decided not to go to the play. It was terribly hot at the Club and I had seen it already in London. I went for a walk instead. The village of Chandrapore had been a bit of a disappointment on arrival, but I had noticed a mosque close to the Civil Station.

I pulled off my shoes and put them down near the rusty gate. The courtyard was almost white. There was a small water tank and on the water lay the moon. I don’t know how long I had been standing under the arcades when I heard a shuffling. Ronny said that there were wild animals in the mountains. When he was younger he liked Russian fairy tales with wolves in it. I took a few steps to where the sound had come from and then I heard someone shout.

‘Madam! You must take off your shoes! This is a holy place!’
‘I have taken them off’, I replied. ‘I left them at the entrance.’
‘You have? Madam! I am truly sorry. But so few people take the trouble. Especially when they think no one is there.’
‘God is here’, I said.
‘Madam! — may I know your name?’
I took one more step and looked into the face of a young man. He had a little moustache and quick eyes. I said my name.
‘Mrs. Moore’, he said, ‘I think you have just arrived in India.’
‘Yes — how do you know?’, I said.
‘I think you should not walk alone at night’, he said. ‘There are bad characters, and leopards, and snakes. It is very dangerous.’
I hadn't thought of snakes. ‘But you walk alone yourself.’
‘I am used to it.’
‘Used to snakes?’
He laughed. ‘I am a doctor. Snakes don’t dare bite me.’

We sat down.
‘May I ask you a question?’, he said. ‘Why do you come to India? And why ever do you come to Chandrapore?’
‘To visit my son’, I said. ‘He is the City Magistrate.’
‘Oh no, that is quite impossible. The City Magistrate’s name is Mr. Heaslop. I know him very well.’
‘He is my son all the same’, I said.
‘But Mrs. Moore, how can he be?’
‘I was married twice.’
‘Yes, now I see, and your first husband died.’
‘He did, and so did my second husband.’
‘Then we are in the same box. And is the City Magistrate your entire family now?’
‘I have two younger children in England — Ralph and Stella.’
‘Mrs. Moore, we are in the same box. Because like yourself I have also two sons and a daughter.’
‘What are their names?’
‘The first is called Ahmed, the second is called Karim, the third — she is the eldest — is called Jamila. Three children are enough. Don’t you agree?
I agreed.

*Between the lines of the indicated pages of E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin UK, 1979.