When She Was Queen

by M G Vassanji

  Three hours out of Chicago he took the exit for Greenfield, checked in at a Howard Johnson just outside of the town, and called up Rusty at his college. That was yesterday afternoon. They had set up an appointment. “I have something to show you,” Rusty said. And, weirdly, said his so-long with “Elvis lives! Jai Elvis!”

  And now on the stage, in front of a class of twenty-five students and six visitors, stands Rusty Mehta. A little thicker at the waist than before, the hair short and bristly and gleaming black, a trimmed black goatee and moustache, the thick devil’s eyebrows that always gave him an intense, insectile look, enhanced today by the black polo-neck jersey, pants, and platform shoes. Perhaps it is that somewhat freaky face and the jeers it received in a Bombay convent school that drove him to withdraw into his Elvis religion.

  “Today’s performance is specially requested by our guests sitting at the back—they are local and known to us, most of them, though one visits us all the way from Toronto, an old friend. Welcome all. We are happy to oblige, and I say this on behalf of everyone involved. The cabaret you’ve seen,” he tells the guests, “is to be presented at the Emerging Cultures Conference in December—to illustrate a paper on Elvis first as agent then as icon of subversion, from ‘JH Rock’ to the present. Also to entertain, of course,” he smiles, pauses for effect, and is rewarded with restrained but knowing laughter from his students.

  He still is, in fact now he truly is, a radical, Diamond thinks, squirming in his wooden auditorium seat, and he is utterly crazy, of course. It’s not always wise to visit the past, I should have known that, but the point now is, I am here and how should I extricate myself gracefully from this entanglement.

  “What you have seen,” Rusty the insectile professor tells his audience, as the props are discreetly dismantled and carried away by the student players behind him, “is a musical memorial to a revolution. Elvis was a revolutionary as surely as Che was, or Ginsberg, or Malcolm X. And ‘Jailhouse Rock’ was subversion, it closed the coffin and danced to the demise of the stiff, sanitized world of My Three Sons, Father Knows Best, and Bing Crosby—the ‘squares.’ Some people—misguided boomers—believe the Beatles and Rolling Stones began the revolution, but if you look at how they began—just think of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’—you’ll realize that Elvis was years ahead—Elvis was revolution in the raw and with the force of an express train.”

  Wasn’t there an Indian Elvis once, a Bombay product, in the sixties? Some Singh or the other who sang, “Oh-oh-oh meri bebi doll?”

  “Right,” says Rusty, and Diamond thinks, we probably had this conversation decades ago. They are walking toward lunch at the Student Union cafeteria, with the five others from today’s audience, who are in the lead and in passionate dialogue. Diamond tries to pick up the pace, in a bid to join them, but what’s this—Rusty pulls him back by the arm.

  “For me, Elvis never died,” he says in quiet monotone.

  Diamond grins. “I can see that.”

  “I’m one of the pioneers in Elvis Studies in this country. It wasn’t easy to get my course accepted, I can tell you that. I teach Elvis as protest. His early movies, especially, had the real protest stuff—against poverty, racism, and colonialism—but he got hijacked, first by the government and the army, and then by showbiz. There is even the possibility of… the c-word … one dare not say it—” He looks Diamond squarely in the eye, then says it: “Conspiracy. Think of Kennedy—who also stood for the less privileged and the blacks—”

  “In this case?—I mean, Elvis?”

  “They neutered him—or tried to, but didn’t succeed. If you study some of his later songs, you’ll find the same message as before—sympathy for the poor and oppressed. He had to be careful not to overdo it… but in his movies, under the guise of dance and song he could be freer and you see a multicultural Elvis—” Rusty eyeballs Diamond keenly, as if to gauge his trustworthiness. “Yes, the m-word—gives some of these fellows here the creeps. Elvis preached it. He was it—he had black, Jewish, and Native Indian blood in him, though you won’t read that in many places. And let me tell you this—even in death, more so in death, Elvis is a force to reckon with—”

  “Come again? Why more so in death?”

  The others have stopped to watch them, and Rusty adds hurriedly, “I can talk to you about it later, if you’re interested,” and they catch up with the rest.

  They combine two tables in the cafeteria, bring their soups and sandwiches from the self-serve counter, and once settled, Rusty Mehta is allowed—not without knowing glances passed among his colleagues—to hold forth, if only for the benefit of his friend from Toronto.

  “I was on CNN once,” Rusty says, slurping his soup. “Did you see me?—I guess not.” He is in a hurry and Diamond suspects the discourse is not only for his benefit but also for the others, who have allowed themselves to be captive for once.

  Rusty says, “And I told CNN exactly what I thought is the message of Elvis. I told them I believed Elvis had Jewish and Native Indian and African ancestry. That’s when I got the Klan on my back.”

  “Really?” Diamond exclaims. Men wearing sheets, on horseback; flaming crosses. Guns. Lynchings. “Really?”

  “Yes. The Klan is very much alive and well in Greenfield, Illinois, I’m happy to report.”

  “Oh come now Rusty, it’s only a fringe group,” protests Phillip, a colleague, wearily called upon to defend the local reputation once again. “The town was treated to a procession of this so-called KKK—six guys in hoods—a bunch of kooks who were booed from beginning to end.”

  “Yes, Rusty, a bunch of yahoos, no one takes them seriously, you know that.”

  That’s Janet; she twinkles a pleasant smile at Diamond and explains, “I’ve got to say my bit too, we all like Rusty but have to bring him back to earth, you understand….”

  She has an Ivory-soap plain face, observes Diamond. We’re all from the same generation. We could start a “where were you when—” session, and sing familiar songs for each other. No, I wasn’t at Woodstock, wish I had been, but I had to work summers to pay tuition.

  “You may think that’s a joke,” Rusty says, “but when I see guys in hoods with a raised cross outside my house, I get scared.”

  “But you told us before they don’t actually burn the cross,” says Phillip. “That doesn’t make them Klan.”

  “Well, they wear those white sheets and make a disturbance outside my house late in the evening, and that scares my family.”

  The discussion continues. Diamond, at the farther end from Rusty, detaches himself from it, so does Janet. “I was in Seattle,” she says, speaking of 1970, which came up a minute ago. “Lots of action there, that spring. Remember, the Vietnam protests? Kent State in the spring? I guess it was all a bit silly, really. I guess it didn’t mean much to you, as a foreigner….”

  “Foreign is where the war was,” he says and smiles. She takes note.

  Sure, we did our bit in the sixties, Rusty and I. Free Bobby Seale and all that. And we were right there, cheering outside, while the university president’s office was occupied, we helped to burn draft cards outside the ROTC building, the two of us foreigners. Nerves tingling and heart racing as the National Guard chases you … and later, Sue’s father raising a finger, cautioning against extremism.

  She reminds me rather of my Susan, he thinks, watching Janet return from the counter with her coffee. She has on a brown skirt, beige shirt, and blue denim vest—quite pretty with that absent, withdrawn look; and that blond hair must have been long and silky once, in 1970. But she doesn’t look like Sue, who had thick, black, wavy hair. You would prefer me to have long and silky blond hair falling down my back wouldn’t you, Sue had said a couple of times, and he told her, No, that’s not true, black and wavy is more like Indian and better. That wasn’t quite accurate, or honest. But we loved each other.

  He met her at a used-book store on Broadway that he frequented. She used to help out there sometimes, the store belonged to her fat
her. There would be flyers on the counter and he always made it a point to pick up a few. They were about strikes and protests, music recitals, lectures, and spiritual enlightenment. He happened to discuss an upcoming Ravi Shankar concert with the girl at the counter, and they wound up going to it together. That’s how it started.

  “Do you have a family in Toronto?” Janet asks.

  “Are you married?—is the question—” someone quips.

  “And it is nobody’s business,” says Phillip. Tall, with curly Art Garfunkel hair, smiling pleasantly.

  “I was,” Diamond speaks up. “She died.”

  There is a guilty silence.

  “Sorry …,” Janet says. Then: “Was she sick?”

  He nods.

  “I say, Diamond,” Rusty says, “you’ve got to check out of that motel and stay at my place. There’s room enough and there are lots of things I have to show you, there are things to discuss.”

  “You bet!” comes a snide remark.

  “I have to hit the road early tomorrow,” Diamond replies across the table. “It would be more convenient where I am, I think.”

  “Let’s talk about it later.”

  They leave noisily, reminding each other of the party at Rusty’s place that night.

  Was she sick? he often gets asked, and he always nods his reply. AIDS, he should add. No, I don’t carry it myself. She had a brief, thoughtless affair, that’s how she caught it. How could she—the affair, the AIDS—after twenty years and more of marriage, a life together like this (fingers crossed together)? The inexplicable. The baby grand falling on your head as you walk by a tall apartment building. The impossible. She took a routine test at her doctor’s, and he was asked to go with her to discuss the results. At the medical centre, where they’d known him the two decades he’d been in Toronto, they all stared at him: the women at reception, Nurse Cameron, and finally Dr. Berger. How could you, you louse: the looks on their faces. It wasn’t I who infected her, he said patiently, and Sue nodded rapidly beside him. He could have caught it from her, only he hadn’t. How could she. But then why not, when fifty’s staring you in the face: and you ask yourself have I lived, really lived, before the decay begins—the heart, the arthritis, the prostate, the ovaries, as the case may be. When did the heart last throb in delicious, wicked excitement? Yes, there had been opportunities for him too, friendly female customers, over-forty types, an assistant once, a healthy-looking English major who liked his eccentricity, she said, his taste in books and music, and there was the backroom, enticing. But he had resisted, and not like Gibraltar either, he just didn’t want the bother. Let’s say I have lived and there’s a life of the mind. And there’s the commitment I have made. Perhaps he was plain chicken. But she, his Sue, had succumbed to wicked temptation.

  —I wronged you, Di….

  —Perhaps you did. I hope you didn’t stop loving me.

  —I didn’t, honest, Di… all those years together.

  —Yes, all those years, they’re ours.

  My Peggy Sue, he’d sing to her when they were younger, during those special moments, after a quarrel, perhaps, and he’d be holding her, feeling terribly sorry; or when he’d woken up early some weekend morning and, leaning on his elbow, caressing the stray locks of her hair at the forehead, trying to wake her. There’s no Peggy in my name, she would sometimes remind him gently. But it sounds nice with Sue, he’d tell her.

  What could replace those moments?

  Phillip plays the guitar, as does Janet beside him, in front of the fireplace in the living room. Janet moved out here after a divorce back east. Phillip is separated, his wife having left him to take up abode with a woman, taking the two kids with her. Which is fine by him. They sing Dylan and Joplin, and Simon and Garfunkel. How songs highlight an age—nothing, but nothing can detach them from us, however corny they sound to a later generation. In that they give us away. Elvis does not feature tonight; Elvis did not belong to their time, except for Rusty, and he had to do his worshipping in secret. Diamond requests “Tom Dooley,” which he hasn’t heard in ages, and is from way before the sixties, but they oblige; then he asks for “Charlie on the MTA,” a Boston song which no one quite remembers. And so everyone is happy except Rusty, looking subdued and somewhat drunk.

  Rusty’s wife Vina is of such enchanting grace and angular beauty as to seem utterly and bizarrely alien in these surroundings. She has an ivory-white face, liquid black eyes, dark black hair, a thrilling, husky voice, and a lovely expression on her face. Her costume is Indian, a handworked silver long tunic over black pants. Cleopatra, Diamond thinks, unsettled by her attention to him, and gushes out compliments.

  “Yes?” she says, staring back, her eyes melting him.

  They have come to sit at the threshold, on the step down from the long passageway of the house into the sunken living room where the rest of the guests have spread out on sofas and the floor. Behind them is the dining room, its lights out. Both rooms face the front.

  “Does Rusty know how fortunate he is, you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

  Vina nods abstractedly and goes to check on the desserts and coffee, then returns to Diamond’s side.

  “Where did you learn to make such flattering comments?” she asks mischievously.

  He is flattered that she heard him despite her preoccupations as the hostess.

  “I assure you I don’t normally talk like this,” he says, realizing he is rather tipsy, but reassuring himself with drunken obstinacy, She is amazing, and so I’m doubly justified in making this asinine declaration.

  “I understand you’ve been having a bit of trouble over the Elvis business,” he tells her, hoping she will not leave him on the step by himself.

  “Yes, our nocturnal visitors. They have not shown themselves for a few weeks, and we’re hoping they’ve given up.”

  He decides not to pursue the disquieting subject and asks instead, “How did you meet Rusty?”

  That takes her by surprise. Her face colours, but she recovers instantly. “Our meeting was arranged,” she says, looking straight at him as if to challenge any adverse reaction or misunderstanding. “He came to Bombay from the States, looking for a bride. I had to approve him, of course. I quite liked him. I wanted to go to America like all young people—and he meant freedom and was quite exotic, you know. He was a real catch. He had just been a year here, in Greenfield.”

  In the living room the singing’s stopped, someone is suggesting a game of personal fantasies.

  “Here, here, I’ll start—listen—my fantasy has in it a female garbage-truck driver, a blond Scandinavian type, not masculine-looking but with a little looseness of limb and a casual style—”

  Diamond and Vina exchange a smile, but at this moment Rusty comes and sits down beside his wife, who pats him on the hand. “Feeling tired?”

  “Just a little, but I don’t want to spoil the fun” They look at each other tenderly, and he asks, “What were you two going on about?”

  “I was telling Diamond how we met, dear.”

  “Ah, yes. What would I have done if you hadn’t come along?”

  “Probably married that girl at the supermarket you had a crush on,” she smiles.

  He looks severely at her, takes her hand and says, “I don’t think so, my darling.”

  They turn to stare at Diamond, and he smiles sheepishly. “Now there’s a happy couple,” he says.

  But Vina draws out a long look of pity for him. “Rusty told me,” she says. “About your wife—”

  “Susan,” Diamond says. “Rusty had met her, in fact. Do you remember, Rusty? Mendelsohn’s Rare Books?”

  Rusty pauses a moment, then replies, “Oh yes, I recall… the one with the curly black hair. So you married that girl?”

  “Yes I did. My first girlfriend.”

  “She had cancer?” Vina asks.

  Diamond nods. “It’s hard to believe when it’s all over, but when it does happen, it’s quick and sudden.”

 
; “I’m so sorry. And you’re going to Las Vegas, of all places?”

  Diamond gives a laugh. “Yes, of all places. Viva Las Vegas,” he says and draws from Rusty a look of appreciation at this Elvis reference. “A family reunion. My brother’s set himself up there, and the others are arriving all the way from Calgary and Vancouver, not to mention Toronto.”

  It’s going to be emotional, this reunion, he hasn’t seen Amir, his elder brother, for more years than he can remember. He never felt inclined to go to Las Vegas, and for Amir Toronto was beyond the beyond.

  “Do you have any children?” she asks, and to his head shake, says wistfully, “We have only our Shireen. I couldn’t have more.”

  Is it worth producing more children for the world? They used to ask each other, and answer firmly: No—there’s enough misery in the world as it is. Instead of having children they would give to charities, adopt Third World children from a distance, help to make a better world. Actually they were both afraid of having children, and Sue was terrified because she had lost a younger sister in childhood. Twice to his knowledge she had woken up from a nightmare involving Marian.

  Looking back now, would it have been worth having a child or two to call his own? He’s been a good uncle, writing regularly to nieces and nephews, some of whom he’s never met. In their discussions with one another, he’s been told, they all think him odd but nice. One of them even described him as cool. “Give me a grandchild,” Alfred Mendelsohn would tell his daughter, arguing, “producing heirs is a sacred duty, to God! To Humanity! Life is a gift, give it to someone” And Sue would reply with something like, “Dad, I’m not a factory for producing children;” or, “Dad, there are enough children in the world.” Sue had a sister, Diane, who was also childless. There were no other siblings. Now Diamond wishes he and Sue had had children, and he’d have something that was both of theirs. Mendelsohn would have his grandchildren and heirs.