by Paul Theroux
"He's checking his diary," I heard her say to her listeners, with a note (so I felt) of satire.
My diary was blank. I smiled as I looked at the empty pages and said, "I'm not free until five," and thinking she might be a bigger bore than she sounded, I added, "I might have something to do later."
"Five, then. We'll be on the upstairs verandah."
She hung up before I did, leaving me angry with myself for having weakened and called her. Looking again at the letter, I found it irritating, and I was further irritated by my own curiosity. I was sure I was wasting my time with this bossy old woman. She was not the first person who'd said to me, I have a story for you. In every case I replied, This is a story you must write yourself. I can't help you. I'm sure you can do it justice.
So I was breaking one of my own rules, giving in to this temptation. I told myself that her letter justified my interest. It didn't have the insubstantial scrappiness of an e-mail. It was written in purple ink on heavy paper; it was old-fashioned and portentous. And I had nothing else to do.
Before I told them who I was and why I'd come, the staff at the Oberoi seemed to know me: the saluting Sikh doorman, the flunky in a frock coat ushering me across the lobby to the colonnade lined with palms in big terracotta pots, and more welcomers—the smiling waitress in a blue sari, the man in white gloves holding a tray under his arm, who bowed and swept his arm aside in an indicating gesture, his glove pointed toward the far table where a woman sat like a queen on a wicker throne, a courtier on either side of her.
I was relieved that she was pretty and slim. I had thought she'd be big and plain, mannish and mocking and assertive. One of the young men was an Indian, and for a moment I thought the woman was an Indian too—she wore a sari, her hair was dark and thick. But when I came closer and she greeted me, looking happy, I realized I was wrong. She was an attractive woman, younger than I'd imagined, much prettier than I'd expected, much better natured than she'd sounded in her letter or on the phone.
"At last," the woman said. "It's so wonderful to meet you. I'm thrilled. I'm so glad you came."
She sounded as if she meant it. I thought, She's nice, and was reassured: it might be bearable.
And at that moment, as she smiled and held my hand and improved the drape of her sari by flinging a swag of its end over her shoulder with her free hand, as Indian women did, I realized that she was not just attractive but extremely beautiful—queenly, motherly, even sexual, with a slowness and elasticity in her manner and movements, a kind of strength and grace. I did not feel this in my brain but rather in my body, as a tingling in my flesh.
"Please sit down. I thought you might not come. Oh, what a treat! What will you have to drink?"
The waiter was hovering.
"Beer. A Kingfisher," I said.
"One more of these," one of the young men said.
"I'm fine," the other said—the Indian.
"My son, Chalmers."
"Charlie," he said. "And this is my friend Rajat."
"Should I have another drink?" Mrs. Unger asked. "I never know what I ought to do. Tell me." She winked at me. "They're in charge. I just take orders."
"Go on, Ma," Charlie said.
"It's only jal, water with a little cucumber juice," she said. "One more." The waiter bowed. "This is Sathya. He is far from home. He knows that I am far from home. Maybe that's why he's so kind to me. Onek dhonnobad."
"Dhonnobad, dhonnobad. Kindness is yours, madam," Sathya said. He was a gnome-like figure in a blue cummerbund, and round-shouldered with deference. He bowed again, then hurried off sideways, as though out of exaggerated respect.
"Ma babies him," Charlie said. I was still turning "Chalmers" over in my mind. "He loves it."
"I'm the one who's infantilized," Mrs. Unger said. "That was the great mistake the British made in India. They thought they had the whip hand here. They were waited on hand and foot. They didn't notice that the servants were in charge. It took awhile for the servants to realize they had the power. And then the flunkies simply revolted against the helpless sahibs."
Rajat said, "Our love-hate relationship with the British."
"Why on earth would you love these second-rate people?"
"Institutions," Rajat said. "Education. Judiciary. Commerce."
"India had those institutions when the British were running around naked on their muddy little island."
"Road and rail system," Rajat said, but ducking a little. He was a small, slightly built man in his twenties with fine bones and a compact way of sitting. "Communications."
"Self-serving, so they could keep India under their thumb," Mrs. Unger said. Seeing Sathya returning with a tray of drinks, she said, "Ah!"
Sathya set down her glass of juice and the beer.
Charlie said, "They make their own whiskey. That's a great British institution."
"When Morarji Desai was PM he closed down the breweries and distilleries. They turned to bottling spring water," Rajat said.
"Desai had his own preferred drink," Charlie said. "A cup of his own piss every morning." He stared at me. "Did you know that, doll?"
"Chalmers is trying to shock you," Mrs. Unger said.
Rajat said, "Some people think it has medicinal properties."
"I am one of those people," Mrs. Unger said. "I'm surprised Chalmers doesn't know that."
"Ma is a true Ayurvedic. You won't believe the things she eats and drinks."
"But I draw the line at tinkle, efficacious though it may be. I don't quite think my body is crying out for it."
"Ma has healing hands."
"Magic fingers for Ma," Rajat said.
"I try," Mrs. Unger said. She lifted her slender hands and gazed at them in wonderment, as if seeing them for the first time.
She told me about her earliest visits to India, recalling cities and experiences, but because she didn't drop any dates I could not work out her age. Charlie was in his mid-twenties. I took her to be in her late forties—younger than me but forceful, assertive, more confident and worldly, so she seemed older. Charlie did not look like her at all. He was pale, beaky, floppy-haired, languid, his lopsided mouth set in a sneer.
She talked about her business—textiles and fabrics, being funny about how she was overcharged, lied to, and always having to bribe customs officials—while I looked closely at her and at her attentive son and his Indian friend.
Her opinionated humor and energy made her seem generous. She had a lovely creamy complexion, not just the smoothness of her skin but the shine, a glow of good health that was also an effect of the warm Calcutta evening, a stillness and humidity on the hotel verandah. That slight dampness and light in her face from the heat I found attractive, the way she patted her cheek with a lace hanky, the dampness at her lips, the suggestion of moist curls adhering to her forehead, the dew on her upper lip that she licked with one wipe of her tongue.
"I don't mind the heat," she said. She seemed to know what I was thinking. "In fact, I like it. I feel alive. Saris are made for this weather."
She wore the sari well, the way it draped lightly—her bare arms, her bare belly, her thick hair in a bun. She had kicked off her sandals, and I noticed that one of her bare feet was tattooed in henna with an elaborate floral pattern of dots.
She was a beautiful woman. I was happy to be sitting with her, flattered, as men often are, that a lovely woman was taking notice. The very fact of such a woman being pleasant and friendly made it seem she was bestowing a favor.
That was how I felt: favored. I was relieved too. I had come here because of her urgent letter, and now there was no urgency, just this radiant woman and the two young men.
Charlie said something about shipping a container to San Francisco.
"I don't want to think about shipping," she said. "Fill the whole container and then we'll talk about shipping."
The Indian had gone silent, so I said, "Do you live here?"
"For my sins, yes," Rajat said. "I live in Tollygunge. I'm good for abo
ut two weeks in America and then I start to freak out."
"Poor Rajat, you're such a love." Mrs. Unger extended her arm as he was speaking and touched his shoulder, letting her hand slide to his arm, his side, her fingertips grazing his thigh, a gesture of grateful affection. And she smiled, more light on her face, the glow in her eyes too.
"I could spend the rest of my life in India," Charlie said.
"But Calcutta is a powder keg," Rajat said.
Mrs. Unger said, "Don't you love it when Indians use those words?"
"The city is toxic." And I heard Mrs. Unger murmur the word as doxic. "When I was young," Rajat said, "I had terrible skin. It was the sweat and dirt of Bengal. I'm from Burdwan, about two hours from here. My face was a mess. My father got a job teaching in Calcutta, and as soon as I got here my skin cleared up."
"You were going through adolescence."
"I was ten!" he shrieked. "I hate dirt. The last time I was in America my skin broke out."
"What you needed was a salt scrub and some pure food. Your mother should have known better. I'll take care of you."
"My poor mother," Rajat said. "All she did was fuss around my father and try to please him. He was a typical spoiled Indian man who couldn't do anything."
"And you're not?"
"Obviously I am living my own life in my own fashion," Rajat said.
He spoke a bit too loudly, in a broad accent, too assertively, and then in his echo in a broader accent.
Merrill Unger said, "I never had that problem with Ralph Unger."
"Ma had him killed," Charlie said.
Mrs. Unger smiled and said, "It was not of my doing. He simply popped off. There is justice in all events."
"But he thought Ma was poisoning him."
"He had a rich imagination," Mrs. Unger said. "His great fault was that he was an Anglophile. That's why he hated India. But he couldn't live in England either—Anglophiles never can. He sat around complaining that the empire was finished."
"I think I might have liked him," Rajat said.
"You are a deluded and perverse young man," Mrs. Unger said with a smile, and I noticed that sarcasm always brought out her brightest smile. "Ralph's other fault was his diet. Know-it-alls and bullies eat so badly. He was a big carnivorous lout, a rather sad man, really, if you looked at him objectively, something I never did. I watched him eat himself to death. Is that insensitive? He never listened to me. He thought I was frivolous and faddish. He didn't realize that he could have saved himself." She leaned over to look at my eyes, my whole face. "Most people don't realize it."
"I try to be a vegetarian here," I said, feeling that a reply was expected of me.
"It's way beyond that. Have you seen an Ayurvedic doctor and had a thorough checkup?"
"I've been pretty busy."
"I keep forgetting you're a celebrated writer."
"Just articles. I keep meaning to write a book."
"You need creative energy for that. Have you done anything about your kundalini?"
Charlie said, "Isn't mother a doll?"
Rajat shook himself in his chair like a shivering girl, seeming to giggle with his body, and said, "I'm one of those people who does all his reading on the Internet. But I've seen your magazine articles all over Charlie's flat."
"You don't know what you're missing," Mrs. Unger said to Rajat, so firmly as to sound like a reprimand. She turned to me. "I've learned so much from you. I'm so grateful."
"Very kind of you to say so."
She said, "If only I could give something back to you. I'd be so happy."
"This is enough," I said. "Sitting and talking like this. If I hadn't met you, I'd probably have just stayed in my room, read a little, and gone to bed early."
They stared at me as though I were being insincere, and my statement hanging in this silence began to droop the way exaggerations do.
"But I thought there was another reason for my being here," I said.
As I spoke, Mrs. Unger seemed to swell—to straighten, anyway—and Rajat to shrink. In growing smaller he became darker, more distinct and brittle and conspicuous. All the while a kind of suppressed and silent hilarity trembled through the three of them, a tension, as just before someone breaks out laughing in intense and mirthless embarrassment. As Rajat's face tightened, his knees together, the shrinking man twisting his hands, Charlie looked bored and slack. He stuck his legs out so they touched the table and jarred the pot of flowers and a carafe of water.
"Do you want to tell him," Mrs. Unger said, "or shall I?"
Rajat twitched a little, as if at a spectral buzzing around his head, then said in a thin voice, "Go ahead."
"Rajat believes he has a little problem," she said in a soothing voice.
"Not so little," Rajat said in a whisper, clutching his knees.
"May I continue?" Mrs. Unger said, smiling her severe smile. She went on in a breathy, actressy way that was just short of satire. "Rajat had an unfortunate experience, and as a result he did a very silly thing. Am I right?"
He nodded and looked at his hands, his fingers crooked around his bony knees. Charlie reached over to pat his shoulder, as Mrs. Unger had done earlier.
"What was the unfortunate experience?" I asked, though I remembered some details from the letter and the words "dead boy on the floor."
"He found something in his room, didn't you, love?"
"Found it?"
"It turned up in the night," he said.
"You woke up and there it was?"
He rotated his head in the Indian way, meaning yes, biting his lip, looking fearful.
"Tell him what it was," Mrs. Unger said.
Rajat moistened his lips and said, "Body."
The word bhodee spoken by this Indian sounded sacred and awesome in its density, like a slab of terrifying meat.
"What was the silly thing you did?" I asked.
"He ran away," Mrs. Unger said, and then quickly, in a practical voice, "I don't blame him. I would have done the same myself. And I would have found myself in the same position Rajat is in right now." She smiled at him. "In a pickle."
Rajat covered his face with his hands, his skinny fingers over his eyes.
"Where did this happen?"
"Right here. Calcutta. In a hotel. A very cheap hotel, I'm afraid," Mrs. Unger said.
"It's clean, anyway," Rajat said.
"Except for the corpses that now and then turn up."
"Ma, please," Charlie said.
Rajat clasped his cheeks and looked as if he might cry.
"I'm stating a fact."
"Did you report it to the police?" I asked.
"We don't trust the police," Mrs. Unger said. "Can you imagine how one would be compromised? I mean, if the story were true."
"I could tell you stories, doll," Charlie said to me.
"Look at him, poor boy," Mrs. Unger said. "He doesn't know what to do."
Anxious and compact in his misery, Rajat sat looking glassy-eyed, almost tearful.
"Was it anyone you knew?" I asked, not knowing where to go with this.
"I never thought to ask that question," Mrs. Unger said. "You see? I knew you'd be a shrewd judge of this business."
But it seemed the wrong question. Rajat began to stifle a sob, and then he let go, covering his face again and weeping into his hands.
The show of emotion, his red eyes brimming with tears in this public place, unnerved me. I said, "How can I help?"
"You see? I felt sure he'd be willing," Mrs. Unger said.
"I have no idea what to do," I said.
"Take an interest, as you would a situation in one of your marvelous stories," she said. "The important thing is that this must not be linked to poor Rajat."
"Don't you think the best thing would be simply to let the whole matter go away? I mean, just forget it ever happened?"
She smiled again, and I realized that the only times she smiled were when she was being sarcastic or when she disagreed with something that was said. Her sm
ile threw me at first, since it indicated the opposite of what she was saying; but as soon as I got used to it I was charmed. She had a beautiful smile.
"Someone knows," she said. "More than one person, most likely. They have something on poor Rajat. He is open to blackmail. He has already suffered crank telephone calls."
"What did they say?" I asked her, but she inclined toward Rajat.
"Nothing," he said. He swallowed, his eyes widening. "Just rang off."
"Maybe wrong numbers."
Mrs. Unger beamed one of her brightest, most contrary smiles.
"I wouldn't know where to begin," I said.
"Let's drop it," she said. "You're being honest. That means a lot to me. We shouldn't burden you with this sordid business."
"I wish I could help."
"You've listened. Your sympathy is an enormous reassurance. And I think it helps that we've been able to talk about it."
I said, "It might be better if you didn't say anything."
She smiled her disagreeing smile and said, "Shall we drop it?"
Sathya the waiter stepped into that silence. "Fresh drinks?"
As so often happens, the waiter's appearance to take an order became the occasion for Rajat and Charlie to get up and say they had to go.
Mrs. Unger just watched them with her pale indifferent eyes. She didn't (as I expected her to) urge them to stay. She said, "Please do be careful, Chalmers."
"He is knowing his way around," Rajat said.
She smiled at that, and as soon as they were gone, her manner became more relaxed, less formal, less motherly, less queenly, all the qualities I now recognized because they were absent. People can seem a bit deflated when they're grateful and frank—she did. She said, "I really mean it. I've learned so much from your writing. I'd love somehow to be able to pay you back for all the pleasure you've given me."
I almost said, I've come to Calcutta to write a story but I have nothing to write. Give me something. But I said, "Don't even think about it."
"But you see, I have something specific in mind."
I said nothing, merely tried to imitate the indifferent glance she had given her son and Rajat.
"Does Chalmers look healthy to you?"
"In the pink," I said. It was true—he was tall, not thin but slender, with a blushy unsunned face and long light hair swept back, and even his languid way of sitting suggested contentment and good health. Although he did not physically resemble his mother, his disposition matched hers: all-seeing, finding a severe humor in the strain of India.
