Hasmukh felt very relieved. He was happy to be back, even though poor Rudi did not know what to say or make of it. The two friends had an opulent breakfast. Hasmukh thought, I should have never left here, and he was happy when Chandra did not call that first day. She also did not call the next day.
On the third day of his return from Hamburg, Rudi carried the phone with the long extension cord from his room to Hasmukh’s and said, “She wants to talk to you.”
He took the phone and said, “Yes?”
There was a moment silence on the other end, then, “Why did you leave? I only stayed at Volkmar’s for the night.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Well, yes. We were sleeping in one bed. He only has one bed; I have been sleeping there and with him many times.”
“Then continue to do it. Good-bye,” he said and hung up the phone.
That night, Hasmukh went with Rudi to a Thai restaurant and relished the spicy deliciousness of the food. It was part of their routine from the past. No phone calls came from Hamburg for almost one week.
He met with old friends Nirvesha and Kavita for tea at their place and found out that Kavita was preparing to leave for Oregon. Nirvesha spent time with her lovers and tried to save more money. Hasmukh learned for the first time about a new line of income for the women: performing in peep shows. She told him it was easy money; they would travel from city to city and spend some time in one place and then move on to the next. The most profitable part of it were private sessions, where the customers paid more money to view one girl only for them alone.
Hasmukh was fairly shocked at first when he heard what his little Margaretha had turned into within a short amount of time. After he got used to the idea, it did not sound as bad because he understood the point. Many girls wanted to see the master, and this option to make money to do so had arrived just in time.
He visited Hilde and the kids on Neudorfer Hof, where Magda prepared to begin her first school year very soon. He could not understand how Hilde managed the situation with now three kids and all the people around her. She had given birth to another baby girl with Kurt.
Remarkable changes in people’s lives transpired all around Hasmukh, whereas he was going through a dormant stage of life. This pause in the action evaporated within two weeks. The phone rang on a midweek morning when a happy Frankfurter, Hasmukh, picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”
“I want you to come to Hamburg; I want you to be here. I am pregnant.”
He swallowed and said nothing. Without thinking, he said into the telephone, “Abort it. I do not think I can be with you. I do not even know whether your pregnancy is with me.”
He hung up the phone, and from that moment on, life started the engine again for Swami Prem Hasmukh.
He began to realize that Chandra’s recent actions had offended him deeply. His reaction to her harsh conduct on the outside may have come from deep-rooted origins he remained unaware of.
She called again within a week, weeping on the phone and begging him, “Please come back to Hamburg, I need you.”
She had never wept in front of him before. This brief phone conversation altered their relationship from purely physical to another level inside of him. Hasmukh, once again, said good-bye to Rudi, asked him to keep his fingers crossed but to leave the door for him open, and left his hometown again.
It was a cold but sunny winter afternoon when he arrived back in this affluent part of northern Germany and parked his Opel Kadett in front of the villa in a park. Chandra must have noticed his car from her bedroom window; she met him halfway along the narrow path between hills of snow, which had been shoveled by the residents of the house. The couple hugged for quite a while, and then Hasmukh looked at her and saw the agony she must have gone through. On Chandra’s face, the extreme force of her determination to obtain a medical degree battled with the sudden condition of pregnancy and a quantity of spilled-over helplessness.
“Are you sure it is from me?” he asked meekly.
“Absolutely, this is the seventh week; I did not sleep with anybody else at that time.” Tears came out of her eyes, and they hugged again in the fresh air, even as both of them began to shiver.
After a pot of tea in the kitchen and a hearty welcome from some of the group, the couple went into her room and made love for the first time in a month. Afterward, Hasmukh invited her to have dinner at the Chinese restaurant nearby, and then the two spent their first official night together in the Sannyas villa.
With the residents group, the couple negotiated to use the mansard on the third floor, together with Chandra’s room on the first, and would not have to pay much rent for it. Discussions about space in the villa—who would get which room—were not as easy as first assumed. The property was a hot item on the list of Sannyasins from Hamburg, but with time and many changes in the formation, a core of residents had emerged where they all got what they wanted.
For Hasmukh a time of adjustment began, and trips to the registry office, DMV, insurance office, and employment office kept him busy. Soon, however, he realized he needed something to do. Michael took some portrait pictures of Hasmukh, which he used to register with the film-extra agency in Hamburg. He had saved some of the nice suits and shirts he inherited years ago, which came in handy for looking good on close-ups. The film and advertising industries in Hamburg flourished; chances of getting an assignment here and there were realistic enough to try. In his favor, the season began slowly to shift into early spring, and there were days with some warmth in the air.
To be a Sannyasin in Germany at this time, given the country’s recent history, may have been the same as having black skin, wearing a turban and kaftan, or emigrating from Turkey or Poland. The disciples of Bhagwan stuck out like colorful parrots in a cage of gray sparrows. Before Hasmukh came to Hamburg, he never realized how awkward it could be to always wear orange-red clothing and have the mala on a necklace made out of wooden beads around the neck. The looks, questions, and comments from ordinary people who had the courage to approach these flamboyant figures were sometimes uncomfortable and impossible to respond to. In essence, how could one explain events beyond words? Among themselves, a common understanding, encounter, something they had gone through, served as the foundation for relating to each other. There were specific expressions that described what occurred, with no further explanation needed. The status quo occasionally promoted the idea that they were not only “the Beloveds,” but also the select few who had a huge advantage compared with the rest of the general public, a human being at the top who attained enlightenment.
Hasmukh knew he could not relate anything of importance in his life to his mother, and nothing changed in his social environment. Looking around, all his friends suddenly seemed to be wearing the same outfit that he did. Adding to the general confusion about this particular group of spiritual seekers, they did not obey any rules. There were no ten commandments, no diet regulations, no cleanliness guidelines, and no church on Sundays. It was not a religious belief system these people followed; they listened to a living, traditional, peaceful East Indian university professor who talked about enlightenment and the world.
Despite the fact that Hasmukh had visited India and searched there for something like a guru, master, or teacher almost a decade ago, this achievement happened in a way he would have never expected—in Germany and all of a sudden, during the deepest period of misery he had known, without any drug or alcohol dependency. One of the first intricacies he noticed within the teachings of Bhagwan and day-to-day life in the community was the realization that the master would not give a one-sided opinion about anything. In his entire world of words, one could always find exactly the opposite of what he said at another place and time. He made sure that nobody would be able to build a solid religion around his teachings.
When authorities began investigations of Sannyas structures, they could not find evidence of donation solicitations or brainwashing or hypnotizing of members. Affluent followers, however, were occasionally approached and called into an office to discuss whether they would like to hand over part or all of their money to the organization. Since Hasmukh did not belong to this category, they never invited him into any office for a special interview. Whatever enterprises the organization started were based on solid capitalistic principles and were successful. Nobody would be forced to do anything they did not want to do. All that occurred within the commune would be initiated to create more awareness, higher consciousness in the followers. Certainly, these creations stood in utter disparity with the foundations of the ordinary school and university teachings. On top of this revolutionary, though absolutely peaceful, approach, the underlying technique or way of life transmitted was to live it totally. When the master created his meditations, he designed them with the Western mind in view—to use the body fully in an active stage before sitting down relaxed, not thinking. The practice of making love as a way to enlightenment attracted thousands of people from the West. Opening up in a safe environment, despite fear, anger, and depression, to communicate with another human with love and compassion was attractive draws.
In the Hoisbuettel commune, daily life looked red, but it was more down to earth than it might have sounded in the newspapers or on television. After a lot of shifting within the occupants’ composition, Harshini moved out of the villa, together with her boyfriend. Chandra and Hasmukh were able to relocate into her much larger room with a view, next to the mansard. Michael found his lover and girlfriend, Saroja, or Lotus Flower. After a long period of dramatic encounters and trials, they, too, decided to move together into his room on the second floor. Shortly thereafter, Saroja also became pregnant. Now there were two expecting couples in the house who formed a strong base with purpose for the community. The third couple, Tanya and Gunnar, both slightly younger than the others, enjoyed their lovemaking and their trials and tribulations with jealousy and money. Stephan moved out of the garden building and living room. The community kept the living room for its real common purpose. Occasionally, they rented the space for a therapeutic group event, and when that happened, the residents enjoyed the increased energy in the house. There was never a night or day when one or the other pair could not be overheard during their most intimate moments.
Chandra quit smoking soon after she learned of her pregnancy, and by the time morning sickness set in, the harshness in her attitude, as a rule, disappeared, leaving room for a more gentle personality. The couple caught up on important facts of pre-birth preparation. Chandra went to scheduled physician’s visits and found out what options existed in the area to organize a home birth.
In the course of some semester holidays, the couple drove to Cologne to see her mother, her brother, and some siblings from the second marriage of the mother. The visit also served as an opportunity to introduce Hasmukh to the family, whose members did not hesitate to ask many question regarding their membership in a sect. They were all very happy to see one another, and the visitors enjoyed their time in the city on the River Rhine.
On their return trip, they made a detour to Frankfurt. Rudi let them stay overnight in the old apartment, and the next day Hasmukh presented his latest girlfriend and future mother of his third child to his mother. There was no way of telling what she felt or thought about him in his red clothes with wooden chain around his neck and with a new partner, but Hasmukh saw that she was glad to see them.
The Sannyasins paid a visit to the place where they first met each other and did the Kundalini together. Hasmukh asked Rudi to think about whether he wanted to take over the apartment and lease it as the main tenant, reimbursing him for the furnishings.
Chandra’s awareness of the growing human in her belly awakened increased mindfulness of her whole body that had not been a priority before. Occasionally, after a meditation or group event in the villa, she approached Hasmukh with tears in her eyes and asked, “What have I done to me? What did they do to me in the past?”
Then it was time for him to hug and cradle her and be with her without asking questions. When she could or wanted, Chandra explained what had come up in her. Most of the memories related to her father and the many years of ice skating training, as well as the burden of responsibility for the young ones in the family. There were additional situations, which had to do with her father presenting her as a quasi-gift to business partners to perform sexual favors. She told him she once had sex with three men at the same time and enjoyed it. What stunned Hasmukh most was the fact that she always had unprotected sex. The group-sex situation impressed him and added to her irresistible crude attraction.
Chandra was a partner who never said no to sex and asked him directly for it on more occasions than he asked her. A strong energy field developed between the two, a space that left the door open for others to enjoy their love and comment on their issues.
Time during the weekdays passed for Hasmukh slowly when the sun did not shine and it rained a lot with nothing to do. Opportunely enough, he received two appointments for extra work. One job was in a photo studio, where the photographer created a picture for an advertising agency customer; it was little work plus food for good money. The second assignment was at an antique villa in the country, where a production company shooting a movie needed almost fifty extras dressed in historical costumes. Roles as a movie extra usually paid much less for more time than did ads, and they consisted primarily of waiting.
As very much hoped for, summer arrived, and things turned toward the better in every way. Chandra’s belly started to show where it had not before. Saroja had expanded in her size for some time already, and it was a pleasure to see two happy women sit at the large wooden table outside on the lawn, chatting with each other.