I remember a trip to Paris when
I was eighteen,
staying alone in a small bedroom with
a balcony
where I liked to stand at night listening
to the jazz
from the Left Bank clubs below me.
I was wistful and wishing I had a companion
to walk around the streets with, yet
I retired early
because I was following my Travel Rules.
(Some of my rules, do not go out
to bars alone, get up early and go to sleep early, do not embark on love affairs with compleat strangers, etc. )
However, by the sheer enormity
of my travels,
defined by the twenty free airline tickets
to our travel business family annually,
I have sometimes found myself in chilling
moments.
I certainly did not intend to be the
only woman
on the Men Only Train, a terrifying
adventure in Bihar, India, a place I had been warned
repeatedly not to go.
Following my Travel Rules, I planned
to travel only
by daylight. For some reason,
I had a ticket
leaving Gaya at four in the afternoon,
which would get me to Benares, or Varanasi
as it is now called, by ten at night.
All the trains I had taken in India
had been jammed
to the rafters with children and
women,
so when I boarded the car, I was
dismayed to see it
half-full of male passengers.
Indian people later explained the
small city
I started at was the first stop
for the train.
Bags of candies that I had bought to
pass out to children went unopened, as men one by one came to stare at me
and my long reddish-blonde hair,
before the train even started.
The people of India stare for a
longer time
than the people of China, and they do
not do the Eye Flicker that some Chinese favour, appraising you from top to toe. Their eyes look only at your own eyes,
face, and head.
The look that the people of India
give is more of
an Eye Lock, except
when you pull out your purse
or your wallet, and then they
study the money
with rapt intensity.
The children of India have a more lovable
quality,
and their huge dark liquid eyes are
full of friendly interest. Their innate gentleness and curiosity
was missed, as I contemplated four or
five hours
with gawking males.
As the train started its engine,
two young men
who had studied me from the platform,
boarded
and sat behind me, continuing their appraisal
of me.
These were amazing stares, long and
unbroken,
no turning away of their heads,
no restless shifting
of their limbs. They seemed to
have gone to Staring School.
Now prolonged staring in the animal
kingdom
is a sign of hostility and a warning
that the other animal
is planning to attack you. Many travellers
seem
to like to forget this, or they never
knew it
to start with.
I bore up quite well, as there was nothing
else to be done, and surely some crowds of women and children
would come caterwauling into the train
any minute.
.
The train started, and the natural light
of the day
began fading until the interior of the
train
was almost black.
I got up at one point to check the train
car ahead of me,
and it too was full of men. I
could not believe my eyes. Maybe a World Conference Of Men travelling
between two cities?
I rereated quickly to my seat, not wanting
to make myself any more conspicuous. Dozens of eyes stuck to my skin
as I moved.
Finally a man broke away from the others,
and came and sat down beside me.
The conversation that followed was one of the most illuminating
I have had as a traveller.
The man had a courteous manner, and
introduced himself
as police officer, one of some rank,
returning to his family home for a visit. He asked me several questions
as to why I was in India, was I married,
and
did I have children?
I said I was a married woman, which
I thought
sounded good in a situation
like the one I was in.
After marriage, I decided to throw in
a bit of religion
as well, to sound super-respectable,
not
the type of luckless female drifter
who
might be lost on a train in Bihar.
I was in India alone because I was a
Buddhist,
and was visiting holy places; this was
actually
close to the truth.
Monica Lewinsky,
said the police officer.
I reflected, saying nothing, since I
was unaware this story had spread to rural India. Surely he did not think
Monica Lewinsky was typical of
ten of millions of Western women?
Maybe he did?
She is just one person,
I said in a harmless, rabbity voice.
Love is free in your
countries, he said, using the word love the way as a synonym for sex.
Not really, I said
uselessly, denying everything.
It was on television,
he explained, All over India.
I could hear the minds of all the men
on this car,
the car before this one, and even around
me
in the lime-green countryside chirpily
agreeing
with his fantasies.
Bill and Monica,
a typical Western couple, there's one on every block.
Many people even do
not like Bill Clinton, I said trying to turn the conversation onto another area. Absolutely away from S-X!
My mind was reeling, thinking
about Monica and Bill,
not exactly reading the poems
of Walt Whitman.
I imagined myself tomorrow,
if still alive,
writing in my travel journal,
while drinking
a big glass of Indian tea.
I threw in a few comments about Buddhist
holy places, beginning a long and sincere prayer to Buddha.
My starry-eyed face encouraged him then
to tell me all about the state
of marriage in India.
Do you know what happens here if
I leave my wife,
he confided, if I go off to
another town? he managed to imply that another woman might be involved, yet graciously courteous enough not to
refer to adultery.
What? I asked.
The police can come and arrest me,
and take me back to my wife. It is the law.
Love is not free like
in your countries, he continued back to his central point.
Most women are not Monica
Lewinsky, I said firmly,
looking out of the window, as though
I was too modest
to look at an Indian man in the face.
The police man stared at my gold wedding
band.
What does your husband
do for a living, he asked.
Private, I
said mysteriously. We continued like this
for some time, and finally the
lights came on in the train.
My joy at escaping the train was short-lived.
The cabbie and his partner stopped
at a
dingy and gloomy hotel, which was not
the hotel
I told them about; yes, yes,
they insisted, and then,
let us take you to a better
hotel.
Their miraculous choice, The Buddha
Hotel, turned out to be six dollars USA for a palatial pink room,
with also a garden, a terraced
restaurant, and
tours of the River Ganges.
My prayers to Buddha were answered;
still with the four million dollars
Monica Lewinsky
made from her sensational best-seller,
being a Bad Girl pays the better wages.
