by Neil Grant
Raj puts their cases on stands and opens the bathroom door. ‘Hot and cold water, on tap, twenty-four-seven hours.’ He opens the tap to demonstrate, and it performs to the best of its ability. ‘There is one small problem with pressure often. These are very old pipes.’ He backs out of the bathroom. ‘Next is telephone. Direct to lobby. Here you can order food in your room if you choose. Maybe it is late and you wish some pakora, here you may order – but not too late, Madam would not like this.’ He looks around conspiratorially. ‘If you are needing anything, you may ask me. Even … ’ His eyes widen. ‘A taxi or some such thing. I can give you tours booking. Or even make tours. Clothes washing.’ He mimes pounding clothes on a rock. ‘But never smashing buttons. Or movie ticket.’ He holds one fist in front of his eye and turns an invisible handle with the other as if this is a game of charades. ‘Train reservation – I can make myself. This will save you standing in line forever. Have you ever been to Howrah or Sealdah stations?’
At this, Nayna nods wearily.
‘Then you never want to go again, na? I can be your man-in-waiting, in the line, buying those tickets. I can be doing all the things you hate about India. The British left behind too much red tape and no scissors. Raj will be your scissors.’
‘Raj.’
‘Yes, Madam?’
‘You talk too much.’
‘Sometimes, yes, Madam. As you wish, Madam.’ Raj bows and backs out of the room.
‘Raj,’ Nayna calls after him.
His head pops around the doorway. ‘You rang, Madam?’
‘Thank you for your offer.’ She pushes a hundred-rupee note into his hand. ‘We’ll get back to you.’
‘Of course, Madam.’ He looks at the note with a joyous smile. ‘I shall be in-waiting.’ The air in the rooms swirls as he retreats, and leaves blow through the window from the tree outside.
When they finally lie down, their backs on the thin cotton mattresses, their heads on starched, threadbare pillowslips; when they have washed the travel grime and Kolkata’s soot from them; when Rudra has placed the skull and Didima’s ashes beneath the bed; Rudra cannot sleep. Outside, all the dogs of Kolkata, all the dogs of the world, gather together, and they howl and howl and howl for all the crimes that have been committed against them. And as well as howling they occasionally bark, and that bark is like a beggar’s cough – in it all the shit and filth and disease of the city. Autorickshaws and taxis roar down Sudder Street, and car and motorbike horns infiltrate the closed window like Morse code. They are not in Patonga anymore. Silent, calm Patonga. And the funny thing about silence, Rudra realises for the first time, is that you only notice it when it is not there.
Morning is soft and slightly cold, but it comes with car horns and the smell of burnt ghee. Rudra looks over to his mum, but her bed is empty. When he goes to the window, he notices that just outside the gates of the hotel is a makeshift stall where a man is frying something in a huge deep pan.
He brushes his teeth, rinses with bottled water, pulls on clean clothes and wanders downstairs.
‘Morning, Mrs Ursu.’ He nods his greeting.
‘Rudra Solace,’ she says. ‘Such as great strong name – “the roarer”, god of storms and winds.’
‘I don’t know about that, Mrs Ursu.’
‘You can call me Ionela.’ She places her hand on his arm.
‘Have you seen my mother?’ asks Rudra.
Her hand withdraws. ‘No,’ she answers. ‘And that lazy good-for-nothing Raj has been gone all morning with all his chores and whatnot still to do. Does he think this hotel runs itself?’
‘I wouldn’t think so.’
‘Well, he acts like it. I should sack him, only his father worked for me until his sad demise. God rest his soul. And he sends money to his mother in Nepal. God have mercy on her.’
‘I’m going for a walk, Mrs Ursu.’
‘Now, Rudra, I have asked you to call me Ionela.’
‘Ionela.’
‘That’s better. Be careful of the beggars and the pickpockets – and don’t talk to the street children, they have head lice.’
Rudra ignores the comments, leaving the hotel and walking to where the sweetmaker has set his stall near the front gate. He nods his greeting to the man, who is filling a cloth with batter from a jug. When it is full, he squeezes it over the wok of hot ghee so the dough squirts out in a squiggle. Instantly it solidifies and begins to turn golden. He continues, looping round interconnected squiggles, like a complex signature, into the smoking liquid. Finished, he prods the squiggles and pushes them around with a pair of metal tongs. Then he draws them out, one at a time, breaking them from their brothers, and placing them in a shallow bowl of syrup.
‘Jilapis,’ he says and offers one to Rudra.
Rudra takes a bite and the hot dough releases syrup into his mouth. It is delicious, sweeter than anything he has ever tasted. He sits beneath the shade of a tree, allowing syrup to drip down his chin.
‘Good?’ asks the sweetmaker.
‘Delicious.’
The sweetmaker gives a satisfied waggle of his head. He takes one himself and sits beside Rudra. They sit eating side by side, looking up through the leaves to the winter sky.
‘This tree is peepal tree,’ says the man. ‘Is possible holy Buddha meditated under this one.’
‘This tree?’
‘Not this tree. But also this tree. Bodhi tree they also call. Enlighten tree. Freedom from suffering tree.’
‘Are you a Buddhist?’
‘Hindu.’ The man points to the postcard of Kali, the ferocious black goddess, on his cart. ‘And you are?’
‘Nothing. I don’t have a religion.’
‘Christian?’
‘No religion.’
‘Buddhist, maybe?’
‘No. I don’t believe in anything.’
The sweetmaker is silent, and the words hang for a while and mean more than they were ever meant to.
His mum’s arrival saves him from the awkwardness of the situation. She breaks through the front gate with Raj, holding a bunch of papers in the air.
‘We got it!’ she yells.
‘What?’
‘Permission to go to the Sundarbans. Raj is a genius.’
Raj smiles broadly. ‘I am,’ he admits, ‘a slight genius.’
‘But why do you need permission to go to the Sundarbans? It’s your home.’
‘It’s complicated, Rudra. India is complicated. Even when you are an Indian. And I gave up that when I became an Australian. When I married your dad.’
They go inside for breakfast.
‘Indian or English breakfast?’ asks Mrs Ursu.
‘Indian,’ they reply.
Mr Ursu snorts her disapproval but shouts something about dhal and aloo paratha through to the kitchen.
‘When do we leave?’ Rudra asks his mum.
‘Raj got us tickets on the morning train to Canning. We’ll catch a ferry to Gosaba and then we’ll work out this complicated thing with Baghchara Island and that skull and your didima’s ashes.’ She exhales. ‘It’s going to be some trip, Rudra.’
‘It is.’
‘You ready for this?’
‘I reckon I am.’
‘I reckon you are too.’
19
CROSSING THE CITY IN A YELLOW Hindustan cab during rush hour requires a special kind of inner calm. This driver does not have it. Instead, he has crazy eyes and a mate who rides beside him, shouting in his ear and egging him on. Like the sweetseller, the driver’s deity of choice is Kali. There she is, stuck to the windscreen, with her swollen red tongue, fangs and electric blue skin, dancing on the corpse of a dwarf, a severed head in one of her four hands, a sword in another. Kolkata, Koli-kata, ‘field of Kali’ – this city is alive with her energy.
The traffic is like congealing blood – the cars, trucks, buses, trams, cycle rickshaws, autorickshaws and motorcycles are platelets in need of thinning.
‘Do you know the word cacophony?’ Na
yna asks Rudra.
He shakes his head, numb with the noise. On every taxi bumper and truck tailgate, the phrase HORN PLEASE is painted, multicoloured, ornate, as if it is a minor law. In this, their driver is the most obedient road user of all, his hand bouncing frequently on the centre of his steering wheel, the horn incessantly sniping at every nearby vehicle or pedestrian.
They come at Sealdah Station from an angle. It is a long building, plastered with billboards and painted in the colours of the Indian flag. Nayna haggles with the driver while Rudra wrestles their bags from the taxi.
Inside, the station is chaotic. There are people sleeping on thin cotton cloths on the concrete. The grassy smell of beedis – cheap Indian cigarettes wrapped in tendu leaves – comes off the crowd like noise. Trains push into the station and swarms of passengers crowd onto them, some clambering onto their roofs, others swinging from the doorways.
Porters in bright red shirts swarm down the platforms, swooping on passengers and carrying off bags on their rag-covered heads. Chaat sellers, preparing their spicy snacks in paper cones, sing out for business. Their huge brass pots gleam in the murky light, towers of tomato and onions guard the borders of their carts, piles of dhoop weep cloying smoke to keep the insects at bay. It is barely past breakfast-time but people are already hungry, cramming food into their mouths before they catch the early train.
‘Nayna! Rudra!’ Raj strides across the platform, his bright cap cocked at a jaunty angle.
‘What are you doing here?’ asks Nayna.
Raj smiles sheepishly, moving from foot to foot. ‘I … ’ he begins. ‘Mrs Ursu … ’ He waggles his head and smiles.
‘We can’t take you with us, Raj,’ says Nayna.
‘But I am special guide.’
‘You’re from Nepal,’ points out Rudra.
‘But I speak Bangla.’
Nayna puts a hand on his arm. ‘I speak Bangla too.’
‘But I am a man.’ Raj, sensing he has said the wrong thing, tries to recover. ‘India is very scary place for women,’ he offers. ‘Sometimes too tricky. I can protect you.’
‘Protect?’ spits Nayna.
Rudra has seen a change come over his mother since she has come home. It is as if Cord’s weight has been lifted from her. ‘I don’t think he means—’
‘I think I know what he means, Rudra.’ Nayna pulls her thin scarf back across her hair. ‘You should go back to Mrs Ursu, Raj.’
‘I cannot go back. She is not a very kind woman.’
‘We have to go. Rudra get the bags.’
They force their way through the crowds on the platform, eventually squeezing onto a carriage and finding an empty seat. Nayna gestures for Rudra to sit down. She smiles apologetically. ‘No seat reservations on local trains, Rudra. It’s only just over an hour to Canning. You take the first shift in the seat.’
The carriage continues to fill with people. Villagers returning home with city-bought goods – plastic bags and cloth-covered bundles. Men in pressed business shirts. Babies with dark-rimmed eyes, children clutching their cones of chaat. Weary women in faded saris sit on the floor. Young guys crowd the doorway. Rudra looks out the window, searching for Raj, but he has disappeared.
‘Do you think that was a bit harsh?’ he says to his mum.
‘Protect us, he said. From what?’
‘I don’t think he meant you couldn’t look after us, Mum.’
‘Then what did he mean, exactly?’
‘I think he was just trying to be helpful.’
She hangs her head. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘I’m just tired and grumpy. I called him a genius this morning. I should have been kinder.’
The train groans and glumly lumbers from the station, shedding chaat and cha sellers, and peddlers of gaudy bangles and plastic guns, hair extensions and lottery tickets. The sweeper boys jump through the doors and roll laughing onto the verges, punching each other and roaring like Bollywood villains.
The train takes a while to leave Kolkata behind, and during that time Rudra is exposed to the entire rail-side population voiding their bowels onto rail ballast. The slums tuck themselves against the rail line, sometimes so close that Rudra can see beyond their plastic curtains into single rooms where oil lamps show posters of movie stars and blue-skinned gods; where sheets of plywood are tricked into thinking they can be roofs, and sad-eyed children hang limply from their mothers’ arms. It scares him, how unpolished and dangerous it is.
Finally, the country opens its green quilt beneath the watery blue sky. Fields of cows, tickbirds perched on their backs, chew with loose-jawed boredom. Boys whir stones into crops, releasing clouds of finches. At small stations, cha sellers board with huge aluminium kettles and clusters of bisque-fired cups. Nayna orders one each and they sit sipping it, tasting the clay beneath the sweetness of the tea and milk, taking in the earth and letting it rest there. And when the last sip is gone, Rudra stares at a single cardamom pod in the bottom as if it is part of his fortune. He pulls it out and bites into it, sucking the seeds from the husk and breaking them between his teeth so they release their fragrance. And he wants to hold on to this moment forever, as if it means everything, as if this is the very taste of home. He realises now what Nayna has being doing all these years – guiding him slowly, through food and scraps of language, to know himself and where he belongs.
In Canning, they leave the station and look for a bus. But the bus has gone and the next one, a taxi driver tells them, will only leave after two hours, or maybe not at all. Nayna shakes her head and translates for Rudra.
‘Do you trust him?’ he asks.
‘No,’ says his mum. ‘But he could be telling the truth.’ They look around at Canning – a place on the way to somewhere else – the filthy dhabas with their displays of fetid curries, watery dhal and cardboard trays of eggs; a couple of sulking hotels with fat men glowering in their doorways; ring-tailed dogs that might form a pack if they had the energy; the ground rustling with foil packets that once held betel nut. And the taxi driver himself – a man with sideburns and shiny slacks and a wide-collared orange shirt – everyone’s creepy uncle, leaning in with a frightening sideshow grin.
‘Shall we leave this place?’ says Mum.
‘Sure,’ says Rudra. ‘How?’
‘I think it has to involve this guy.’ She nods at the driver, who is now keeping the other taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers at bay with sour mouthfuls of Bangla. Nayna puts her bag on the ground and smiles at him. The negotiation begins. There is a lot of pointing at the sky and a worrying moment where he walks away and confers in whispers with the gathering crowd.
‘Okay,’ he says finally. ‘Chalo.’ And grabbing their bags, he flings them into the boot of his cab.
The taxi, it turns out, looks far more roadworthy from the outside. There are gaping rust holes in the floor and the seats appear to be made from shredded lungs. Their driver sparks up a beedi and exhales a choking bank of fog. Rudra goes for the window winder but finds it gone. The one on Nayna’s side is missing too.
‘Please,’ starts Rudra. ‘Can you not smoke?’
‘No English,’ says the driver, his voice clotty with the fumes.
Nayna repeats it in Bangla. He snarls at her and continues puffing on the beedi, rolling it from one side of his thick-lipped mouth to the other with his tongue.
‘Can you open your window then?’ asks Rudra.
Apparently his lack of English allows this one and, grudgingly, he cracks the window a little.
They cross the bridge over the Matla River and drift down the road between fields and the occasional grass-roofed shack. It seems idyllic, and Rudra allows himself to imagine a simple life in one of these roadside huts – a cow for milk, their own rice fields. And then he thinks of Patonga – of what they have, so similar. Seemingly simple until you examine it and see the cracks, the dark gaps between, which will surely draw you down.
At this stage, the taxi coughs, whines and shudders, spitting powdery black smuts o
nto the road. The driver rocks backwards and forwards in the seat, willing the beast on. But, finally, it dies completely; the motor ticking softly like a fingernail on a glass. The driver pounds the steering wheel and screams in Bangla, in words that Nayna will not translate. The beedi is spat through the window. The door is opened. The bonnet is lifted. Through the windscreen, framed by the bonnet and the dash, a hairy paunch erupts from an orange shirt. Fingers plumb the oily crevices of the engine bay.
‘What now?’ Rudra asks.
‘I have no idea,’ replies Nayna. ‘We wait?’
‘For what?’
She points to the goddess postcard on the Ambassador’s dash. ‘Divine intervention.’
A car horn ponks behind them and another taxi edges up. Nayna smirks at Rudra. ‘It worked!’ she says, leaping from the cab.
Rudra sneaks out and retrieves their bags from the boot. When he turns towards the other taxi, Nayna is standing with her hands on its roof. ‘Rudra, you will not believe this,’ she says, nodding to the passenger.
The road is potholed and fringed with cows and cyclists. They travel in silence, for there seems nothing more to say. It is plain that Nayna is embarrassed.
He travels up front and turns to smile every now and then. He pulls out a photo of Amitabh Bachchan and shows Rudra. Rudra takes it and shows Nayna, but she looks out the window, pulling at her bottom lip.
‘He didn’t save us, you know, Rudra,’ she says.
‘Of course not, Madam,’ he says.
‘I am entirely capable,’ she says.
‘You are, Mum,’ says Rudra. ‘But I still think you should apologise.’
‘No need, Madam.’
‘I’m sorry, Raj. I am. I was mean and hurtful.’
‘No need, Madam.’
‘But you mustn’t think I need saving. We need saving.’
‘Definitely not, Madam.’
‘We’ll pay you, of course, to be our guide.’
‘Thank you, Madam.’
‘Did you tell Mrs Ursu where you were going?’
