We swam and then had lunch on the porch. During lunch, I saw a man walking along the beach with a bear and a dog. I asked Pyarali what the man was selling. "I will show you," he said. "It is a pretty sight." He clapped his hands twice, and the man led the bear and the dog to the house. There was a short exchange between Pyarali and the man, and Pyarali gave him two or three rupees. The dog lay down in the sand. The man pulled the string that led to a brass ring in the bear's nose, and the bear stood on his hind legs. The bear's teeth and claws had been removed, and his slobbering mouth looked ridiculous with nothing but pink gums and flapping jowls. The man began to sing a high, nasal song, and he hit the bear lightly on top of the head in rhythm to his tune. Each time he tapped the bear's head, he pulled on the string, which made the bear jump and grunt. It was supposed to appear that the bear was dancing.
After perhaps five minutes, the man stopped the song and let go of the string. The bear dropped onto all four legs and then lay down in the sand, panting. The man turned and smiled at us and raised his stick with the kind of flourish with which a magician precedes a particularly impressive trick. He bent over and jabbed the dog just below the tail. The dog leapt to his feet and began to chase his tail, growling ferociously. He ran in circles, growling and snapping at himself, until the man tapped him with the stick. Exhausted, he sank to the sand.
Evidently the money Pyarali had given the man was enough to cover the super deluxe special show, for the man kept repeating his act. After the third repetition, I said, "Okay, I've seen it. Grand." Pyarali told the man he could go away now. The man stopped the act, but he did not go away. He began to gesture wildly and argue with Pyarali. Finally, Pyarali barked a command at him, and he dragged his animals off down the beach. "What was all that about?" I asked.
"First he wanted us to hire him to do the whole act again," said Pyarali. "Then he wanted us to hire him to pose for your cameras. Then he said he wouldn't go away unless I gave him some money. I told him he was welcome to stay there and do his act all day but I was not going to give him any more. It was when he started to curse me that I got so military and ordered him away."
We talked mostly about politics. Pyarali wanted to go into politics in Pakistan, but he was waiting until the government changed before he ran for office. In the Ayub government, most candidates are hand-picked by the Ayub cadre. Even if he could get elected to parliament, he would be a member of a puppet body, whose main raison d'etre was to act as a display, a symbol of a democracy that didn't exist, and a front for the autocracy of Ayub. During a lull in the conversation, Pyarali said to me, "Let me see your hand." I held out my hand, palm up. "When were you born?" he asked. I told him. "You were born within an hour of midnight."
"Yes. I was born at about eleven-thirty at night. How did you know that?"
"The combination of the Taurus influence and this hand made it certain." He added something about an ascending moon that I didn't understand. He went on to give me a standard palm-reading. I asked him how much he actually believed in astrology. "Completely," he said. "It is almost a religion with me. I will tell you a story."
Since Pyarali was so interested in astrology, he had been studying it seriously for many years. He had visited a great many of the most renowned astrologers in Pakistan and India. Some were quacks, he said, and in fact the reputations of most of them were wildly out of proportion to their talents. However, three per cent or so were excellent, and Pyarali felt it was worth sifting through the quacks to get to these men. Three or four years ago, he heard of a man in Ceylon who was supposed to be the best. In his possession were thousands of rolls of dried leaves, and on each roll was written the life—past, present, and future—of one person. The rolls were called "life books." A friend of Pyarali's had gone to Ceylon to ask the man if he had his life book —the life books were not only of Ceylonese people, but of people from all over the world, and the odds were slim that the man would have his. But he did have it, and for two days Pyarali's friend sat and listened to the exact details of his past, present, and future. The fee for such a complete reading was enormous, but it was the reading to end all readings, and well worth the price.
Pyarali's friend told some of his friends about the man, and a few of them went to Ceylon to see him, but he did not have their life books. Someone had them somewhere, but it could have been a man anywhere from Tokyo to Cairo. One year Pyarali took his vacation in Ceylon, and he went to see the man. The man said he would look for Pyarali's life book and would tell him the next day whether he had it. He did, and that day he began the reading.
The writing on the leaves was in Tamil, and as the man read, his assistant provided a simultaneous translation into Singhalese, and Pyarali himself translated into Urdu. The reading began with the past of his present life, then went to his past lives, then to the future of his present life, and finally to his fate after this life. He was told his entire ancestry, complete with names, occupations, places of birth, ages at death, and number of children, all accurate to the finest detail. He was told his mother's age, appearance and past, and his father's age, appearance, past, profession, and achievements. He was told the place, year, month, day, and hour of his birth, the extent of his education, his profession, his illnesses, his ambitions, the number and sexes of his children, his wife's name and what she looked like. He was told what he wanted to do and that he would succeed to such-and-such an extent if he went about it in a certain way. Then he was told of his past lives. He seemed to have worked his way up the class scale in other lives, for his four or five most recent ones had been as either a prince, an adviser to a king, or the king himself. As for the future of this life, he was told how many children he would have, when and how serious their illnesses would be, and the exact steps toward his goal of being a prominent leader in Pakistan. He was told what to avoid and when to avoid it, how to cope with certain situations that were destined to arise, and what people to trust and distrust. And he was told at what age he would die, sixty-three. The man did not tell him how he would die. He would be lucky enough to have very few, if any, future lives. In the whole reading, there was only one fact with which Pyarali disagreed: the life book said that his mother was one of seven children, and he knew that he had only four uncles and aunts. When he returned from Ceylon, he asked his mother about her family. She told him that her mother had lost two children in childbirth. She had not known it herself until recently, and she had not mentioned it to anyone.
We saw Pyarali every day until we left Pakistan, and we argued incessantly. Often he made statements exactly the opposite of his beliefs, just for the sake of argument. But one thing he felt very strongly was that the United States was paying too much attention to the neutral countries and not enough to her allies. Pakistan, for instance, was a solid ally of the United States. But this alignment with the West did no more, and possibly less, for the standard of living of the Pakistanis than India's policy of nonalignment did for the Indians. Pakistan is a tiny country burdened with the world's fifth largest population. Naturally, many Pakistanis looked at India, at the aid she received from both camps, East and West, and logically concluded that Pakistan's faltering economy could be much improved by neutrality. She would receive more than twice the amount of outside help, and she would be protected by everybody, so a large part of her defense budget could go to food and housing and education. "Also," said Pyarali, "what do you suppose a Pakistani thinks when he sees our great ally, the United States, pouring aid into India, a country with which we are practically at war over Kashmir? How long do you think we will stand quietly by as our so-called friend feeds our enemy?"
A year later, during the Chinese invasion of India, the government of Pakistan, annoyed by our sending military aid to India, opened negotiations with China about a nonagres-sion pact and the construction of a road that would give China easy access into India.
11
Because of a combination of confused circumstances, Charlie was unable to get an Indian visa before we arrived in India. In most countrie
s, the incident would have been handled matter-of-factly: Charlie would have been (1) detained at the airport until a visa could be issued, (2) issued a temporary visa, or (3) sent back to the country he had just left. In India, the oversight almost caused a national disaster. The customs officials at the airport had no facilities for issuing visas and no facilities for detaining people for more than an hour or two. And there were no planes returning to Pakistan that day. They didn't know what to do, and what began as a simple colloquy between Charlie and one calm official ended in a shouting match between both of us and five muddled, furious Indians. Finally, after more than a full hour's arguing, the Indians gave up and issued Charlie a special, temporary, twenty-four hour permit and told him to be at the immigration office the first thing the next morning.
We took an airport bus to New Delhi and started looking for a hotel. It was after dark when we found one that would have us. It was a government hotel, cheap and clean, and a room and a bath and three meals cost six dollars a day. We ate a light supper, put our dirty shoes outside the door to be polished, and went to bed.
At six the next morning, I was deep in a dream of my lost lady love when the phone rang. I fumbled the receiver off the hook and grunted into the mouthpiece.
"Room 406?" said a chipper voice.
"No," I said, "this isn't room 406."
"It isn't?" said the voice. "What room is it?"
"616."
"Are you sure it isn't room 406?"
"Of course I'm sure! I know my own room number. It's room 616. And it's also six o'clock in the morning."
"Oh." Click.
I slammed down the phone and rolled over, hoping to recapture the vision of loveliness. But it was gone, and I buried my head in the pillow and waited for my mind to find new pastimes.
The doorbell rang.
"What?" I yelled into the pillow.
"I'll get it," said Charlie. He stumbled out of bed and undid the locks. The room boy stood in the doorway, crisp and clean in his white uniform. "Yes?"
"When you wan' tea?" said the room boy.
"What?"
"When you wan' tea?"
"When do we want tea?"
"Yes."
"I don't know when we want tea. Who wants tea, anyway? Hey," he shouted over to me, "do you want tea?"
"Go away," I said.
He turned back to the boy. "What are you, nuts? It's not even six-thirty in the morning. We don't want tea. Who ever told you we wanted tea?"
"You wan' bananas with tea?"
"Now listen here, son. I don't want tea, and I don't want bananas, and I don't want cookies. And what's more, I don't want to see you again. Goodbye." He started to shut the door, but the boy put his foot in the way.
"You frien' he wan' tea?"
"No! Out! Hear? Out!"
We got up at nine-thirty. Breakfast was served until ten, so we shaved and dressed leisurely. At quarter to ten I opened the door to pick up our shoes. No shoes. I rang for the room boy.
"Where are our shoes?" I said when he arrived.
"I gedem," he said, shaking his head in a broad, vacant grin.
"Thank you."
He scurried off down the hall. In a moment, he returned with our shoes. I gave Charlie his. I was about to shut the door when I noticed white spots all over my shoes.
"Just a minute," I said. "What are these?"
The room boy looked. "Had mud onem," he said.
"Yes, they had mud on them. Why didn't you take it off before you polished the shoes?"
"No good."
"No good. You mean it came off his shoes but not off mine?"
"Yes."
"How do you suggest I get these white blobs off my shoes? They're hardened right in there."
"Give me money," he said. "I takem down to shoeman. He fixem." He stood there with that same grin on his face.
"Forget it," I said. "Just forget it."
I put on my shoes and we went down to breakfast. The menu said that we could have cereal, eggs any style, bacon, toast, marmalade, honey, juice, milk, and coffee. We did. The juice and cereal came, and we had those without incident. Then came the eggs. Charlie had ordered scrambled, I had ordered fried. Both orders were scrambled.
"I wouldn't try to change them if I were you," said Charlie. "You'll only confuse the waiter."
I ate them.
"Could I have some more butter?" said Charlie.
"And may I have my coffee now, please?" I said.
The waiter, a short, stocky man with heavy, dark eyebrows and a large mustache, grunted. He walked away. We finished our eggs and drank our milk.
"Where's our waiter?" said Charlie.
"I don't know." I looked around the room and saw the waiter standing at a serving table by the kitchen door. "He's over there."
"What's he doing?"
"Nothing." I motioned to the waiter, but he didn't see me. The captain came over.
"May I help you?" he said.
"Yes, please. We asked for some butter and coffee, and the order seems to have gotten lost."
"I'll tell your waiter."
"Thank you."
Five minutes went by. "Where's the waiter?" said Charlie.
"Same place."
"What's he doing?"
"Same thing. Nothing." I motioned to him again, and he saw me and came over.
I said, "What happened to the butter and coffee?"
"I gedding it."
"Where?" said Charlie. "In Singapore?"
The waiter grunted and walked away.
Five more minutes passed. "Where's the waiter?" said Charlie.
"Same place."
"Yeah, I know, and doing the same thing. Nothing. The hell with this." He raised his hand, and the waiter came over. "Do you think you could find the time to get us some butter and a little coffee?"
"I gedding it," said the waiter. He turned around, walked to a serving table not ten feet away, reached into a cabinet, pulled out a pot of coffee and a plate of butter, and brought them to the table. He set the pot of coffee down so hard that it splashed on the tablecloth.
"Thanks," said Charlie.
The waiter walked away.
After breakfast, we got the address of the immigration office from the hall porter. It was only a few blocks away, on the same road as the hotel, so we decided to walk. The number of the building was 44. We passed 38, 40, and 42. There was a large space between buildings, a wooded area in which sat four or five small houses, and then number 46. A sign on the gate before the wooded place said, "No admittance. For authorized personnel only. Barracks."
"It must be in there," said Charlie, pointing to the sign.
"It can't be. That says it's barracks. Besides, it says keep out. Maybe the number was 144."
"Let's ask." A man was passing by, and Charlie went up to him. "Pardon me," he said. "Do you know where the immigration office is?"
The man stared at Charlie. Then suddenly he grinned and began to move his head from side to side. It was a strange motion, a turning of the head which kept the chin almost stationary and moved the rest of the face left and right with the chin as a pivot point. This motion, combined with the broad, toothy grin, made the man look like an imbecile. "Gheegheegheee hahahahaha yes," he said.
Charlie was unnerved by the laughter, and said, "Oh."
The man gave no indication that he was going to say anything further, so Charlie said, "Is it here, or at number 144?"
"Gheeghee haha yes."
"Which?"
"Gheeghee haha yes."
"Is it far or near?"
"Hahahahaha yes."
"Oh. Well, thanks a lot anyway. Sorry to bother you."
"Hahahahaha yes." The man walked away, smiling.
"Try again," I said.
A man approached us. "You like see some pretty stones?" he said.
"No, thank you," said Charlie. "But perhaps you could tell me where the immigration office is?"
"You wan' pretty stones?"
"No
, thank you. Would you tell me where the immigration office is?"
"You give me one rupee."
"No, I won't give you one rupee." Charlie turned away, and we started looking for someone else to ask when the man said, "Dad way." He pointed down the road.
"Down there? Number 144?"
"Dad way."
"Is it far or near?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Thank you." We started walking.
Number 144 was a tailor shop. We went in. "This isn't the immigration office, is it?" said Charlie.
The tailor was an old man, dressed in a tattered, western-style suit with a necktie somehow fastened to the side of his shirt collar. "No," he said. "It is not. The immigration office is number 44. It is like a forest with a few small houses. Pay no attention to the signs."
"Thank you," I said. "I'm afraid we have a language problem. We've been misguided. Sorry to bother you."
"Not at all."
"Language problem, nothing," said Charlie when we were outside. "That other guy was just getting back at us for not buying pretty stones. He'd have had us walk to Calcutta."
At the immigration office, we were told to wait. We sat down on a bench in a hall. Forty minutes later, a man came out and asked what we wanted. We told him we were trying to get a visa.
He laughed. "Oh, bad luck," he said. "You've come to the wrong place. Other immigration office. The one in Old Delhi."
"But the man at the desk said for us to wait here."
"I know. He didn't do it on purpose, he was just confused. Thought he might as well tell you to wait as anything else. Here's the address in Old Delhi."
In half an hour, after riding across New and Old Delhi in a Vespa taxi, we were seated in the immigration office in Old Delhi. There were eight men in the office, all at desks lined up against the wall. There were papers everywhere—on the floor, in bookcases, on the desks, sticking out of ledgers. Piles of papers completely obscured one man from the shoulders down. He sat behind them, meticulously entering numbers in different ledgers which he pulled down from a shelf over his head.
A man took Charlie's passport and temporary visa as soon as we arrived, and told us to have a seat. Charlie filled out a visa request form and presented two pictures of himself. The man went to a desk, took a large stamp from a box, and stamped the passport. "Your visa," he said, showing it to Charlie. Charlie reached for it. "Oh, no," said the man. "It has to be signed."
Benchley, Peter - Novel 01 Page 14
