Lucky Ticket

by Joey Bui

  ‘It’s not supposed to be like this. It is not allowed to happen like this,’ he said, tucking his bedsheet in neatly one morning, ‘but sometimes it does. You don’t know how lucky we are to work for the university.’

  ‘Have you ever met these men?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but I’ve seen them. Some came to the university for construction jobs. Only for a few weeks—short-term contract, right? But when the university found out the problems with their usual employer or contractor, and with their accommodation, they were taken off the job. Just like that. It would have been the best-paying job they ever had in this country, too,’ he spat. ‘Poor guys. These guys who look just like me.’

  We were in the communal ICAD bathroom, brushing our teeth. I was about to ask why they came here in the first place, but stopped myself. It was a foolish question. Everyone in ICAD knows the answer: because it is worse at home.

  Abdul glanced at my reflection in the mirror. His expression changed to one of annoyance.

  ‘It’s no good talking about that. Things are very good for us here now.’

  On the bus rides between Mussafah and the island, I sometimes looked at the construction sites and thought about the Abu Dhabi I didn’t know. But mostly I didn’t want to think about it. The university was taking care of us. They finished building a workers’ recreation space on campus, with a small kitchen, couches and a pool table. I didn’t spend much time there because my break was only half an hour, and I stayed in the cafeteria to eat. Security guards used the space between shifts to nap. Later, it was where Workers Affairs held information sessions about how to raise complaints or provide feedback anonymously. Workers were required to go to at least one session, but could attend up to three. We liked the sessions because we were paid for the full hour and they had a beverage table, the kind I usually prepared for student or guest events: two tables with a black cloth, tea, coffee and biscuits. Workers Affairs also held another mandatory session about journalists—to inform us that we were to contact Workers Affairs before speaking to any journalists who approached us. But no one I knew was ever approached by a journalist.

  By the end of my second year, I was eligible for a pay increase. I had finally paid off my recruitment fees, I was sending more money home and I had more money to spend in Abu Dhabi on my days off. I couldn’t join in fully with Abdul’s Indian friends and with Ricky’s Filipino friends because I didn’t speak their languages, but they often included me. I took Abdul to the dosa place where I had eaten during the summer, and I went with Ricky and his friends to Filipino restaurants in Mussafah and downtown. Some nights we watched movies in ICAD. The night we watched Fast and Furious 7, the room cheered when the car jumped between the two Etihad Towers. I recognised the towers from my trips to the Corniche and felt proud of Abu Dhabi.

  In January, the coolest month, university life slowed down while the students were studying abroad. We were given a long weekend off, with full pay, and I pitched in with Abdul and his friends to buy cricket equipment, ten dirhams each. For three days, we played in the car park out the front of ICAD. On the last day, Indians vs Sri Lankans, the losers (Indians) bought KFC for everyone to share. It kept me out of my own head and I didn’t feel anything like the drowsiness of summer. I was still going to the prayer room every day. I felt self-conscious about it because I didn’t know much about Islam, not like the other Muslim guys who came to pray. But I kept doing what I had started in the summer: closing my eyes and remembering as much as I could of home, scene by scene.

  Finally, six months later, I was back at Abu Dhabi airport, on my way home for the summer break. It was oppressively hot again, just like when I first stepped out of the airport almost three years ago. This time I was coming back to the airport with a bus load of other ICAD workers, some of them new friends. My carry-on bag jangled, full of magnets, keychains and photo frames, and heavy with five kilos of medjool dates. In my suitcase were five different perfumes that Abdul had helped me choose for Grace and my sisters. My favourite was for Grace; I would let my sisters choose among the other four. I smiled, imagining how my sisters would argue over them, and complain that Grace had got the most expensive perfume. I hugged the other workers when we parted for our different gates. I was not close to them—Abdul and Ricky were flying out on other days—but we were all feeling excited at the prospect of being home soon. Even the twinge of knowing I would miss Abu Dhabi over the next two months made me elated: it meant that I was looking forward to coming back.

  On the plane, everything slowed down, but I felt fine. I was in my best polo shirt, a yellow one that I knew Grace liked, and I had on new sandals I had bought in Abu Dhabi earlier that year. I had shaved carefully that morning. A lot of people were coming to Zanzibar airport to pick me up. Neema told me that she had arranged a minibus to take everybody to and from the airport. I imagined stepping through the gate in Zanzibar, proud and confident, like other Zanzibaris coming back from overseas. I had changed, and I wondered how soon my family would notice. I think I was more handsome. I had lost weight and my jaw was more defined. I had outgrown the soft, babyish face I used to have. When I thought about my old name, Fredy Mpole, I was no longer irritated: I had only been that sensitive boy for a short time, and his embarrassments seemed minor now. The people at ICAD saw me, I think, as somewhat pensive, but mostly easygoing, and willing to join in. And now I had Neema’s smile. I wanted to be that person for the people at home. I felt like that person.

  Aunts and uncles at the Mwanakwerekwe market would ask me what Abu Dhabi was like. Would I recommend it for their sons? Staring out at the cream-coloured rooftops as my plane took off, I asked myself: how could I begin to describe my experience? Ricky had given me a photo as a goodbye present: Ricky and me grinning behind the sandwich bar. One of Ricky’s favourite students had taken it. I slid it into a photo frame I had bought for my mother. The cafeteria looked fancy in the photo: shiny, dark wood panels, a brick feature wall, and Marhaba, the word for welcome, in large Arabic and Roman letters mounted on the wall behind us, lit up in bright purple. I was brandishing a baguette and Ricky was shaking a bottle of pesto, the students’ favourite sauce.

  I didn’t know how much of Abu Dhabi I wanted to describe, or even if I would be able to describe it. I could tell them about the heat, the university, the students, the palaces, the fragrance and the glossy tiles of the hotel. I could tell them about cricket and KFC on long weekends. I would warn them to keep receipts for recruitment fees. I could say that I was praying every day now. And some things I would keep to myself.

  After the exhibition was taken down, people asked me how it felt to be an artist. They always said the word in English. Buwa, my father, couldn’t say it without laughing. He had heard what I was saying to my friends at the university: It was a real honour to show people how the civil war hurt us Nepalese, it was an emotional experience, etc.

  Buwa stared down over his white moustache and smacked me on the head. He had always done this, teasing for the most part.

  ‘Forget it, Buwa,’ I told him, and his laugh turned into a sneer.

  The exhibition closed after three months because there was no custodian for the space. Not long afterwards, we received a magazine from Julie in America. Manna, our maid, brought it to me at breakfast. She had already torn open the plastic sleeve and riffled through the magazine.

  ‘You are famous, Mister Artist,’ said Manna. She opened the magazine to the page with my photo, the one I used for the exhibition, and pointed to my name in small print underneath: Ngodup Thapa.

  Manna handed me the small yellow card that had come with the package and I moved over to the window to read it. Printed in serif font, the card read: Congratulations, it is important to show how the civil war hurt your people; it is a very emotional image. Julie’s signature was printed at the bottom. The card had curly lines, like English vines, embossed around the borders. I started to itch.

  Julie first visited our house in Balkot earlier this year, one day in March
, in the evening before the electricity went out. I could see her approaching our house with her driver. I changed my shirt before I went to open the door.

  ‘We have a guest,’ I called out to Buwa. ‘A white woman.’

  He was in the study, measuring our chairs for new cushion covers.

  ‘What, at this time?’

  Julie had come in a taxi organised by the university; her driver was a local Nepalese man. He came to the door with her and gushed about her art career in New York. I went to find Manna before she left for the day and asked her to make us some chai.

  ‘What, at this time?’ Manna said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We will be waiting in the living room.’

  ‘You think you can take an American lady to the living room in the state it’s in?’ She sent me to make the chai while she pulled the old cushions out of the cupboard.

  Years ago, the living room was where Buwa talked to professors and activists about the state of affairs with the war. The furnishings had once included cabinets full of old books and keepsakes, and a red rug with a gold trim, which Aama, my mother, had ordered from India. Since her death seven years ago, Buwa had removed the decorations one by one. The professors and activists had stopped coming.

  I heaped four spoonfuls of sugar into each cup and carried the tray up the steps into the living room. Julie was sitting cross-legged. The cushions had faded. I watched Julie move her knee to hide a dark stain on the rug. She was dressed all in white. Her sand-coloured hair was short and wavy, and I found myself following the arc of wisps that fell onto her face. At that moment, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked up at me.

  ‘I love your photographs, Ngodup,’ she said.

  I sat down, as still as possible, unsure how to answer.

  ‘What photos? I didn’t know you were taking photos,’ said Buwa.

  ‘They were for a university class,’ I said.

  ‘Your professor gave them to me. I think you reveal the true face of the civil war,’ said Julie.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Your photographs would be a great addition to the event I’m creating, about the horror of Nepal’s civil war as seen through the eyes of the locals,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a really great space near Kathmandu. We’re hoping to keep the house as a museum after the event.’

  ‘The old Maharjan house?’ Buwa asked.

  ‘Yes, exactly.’ Julie smiled.

  I was surprised he knew anything about it.

  ‘What does my son have to do for the show?’ said Buwa. He was in a new linen shirt, his arms stretched out straight, holding his knees.

  ‘It’s not a show,’ said Julie. ‘It’s a space featuring some works.’ ‘An exhibition,’ said Buwa.

  ‘Yes, a space for art.’

  She reached for her cup. Her rings clinked against the china. I recognised them from the stalls by Durbar Square, copper bands with coloured glass, five hundred rupees apiece.

  ‘What do you think, Ngodup?’ she asked. ‘Can I use your work?’

  I glanced at Buwa.

  ‘We would only display one image,’ said Julie. ‘There’s one that stands out. The portrait.’

  She smiled and I looked away to stop myself staring at her. I didn’t know which one she meant.

  ‘I’m thinking about calling it Woman,’ Julie said. ‘I think it says a lot about gender and female pain.’

  I avoided Buwa’s eyes.

  ‘Do you want to do this, Ngodup?’ Buwa asked.

  Julie looked startled. But perhaps it was only the colour of her eyes, so clear and blue.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  When she was leaving, I accompanied Julie from the living room. Up close, her hair was so fine I could see her scalp, pale and glistening. Her blouse fluttered as she dropped down a step and yelped.

  The next day, I was driving into Kathmandu with my girlfriend, Shabnam, behind me on the bike, her crotch pushed against my back. I was thinking about Julie, and the way her blouse floated around her and how you’d have to catch her inside it.

  I turned and said to Shabnam, ‘I’ll show you a secret road.’

  The bike leaned to the right when Shabnam reached down for her shoe. She had been fiddling with it since we had entered the gravel road.

  ‘Stop it!’ I shouted.

  I stuck out my foot to realign the bike and a shooting pain went through my knee. The bike was so much heavier with Shabnam on it. Her hair brushed against a branch as I veered onto the side road off Hattisar Sadak. It was tight but I had to go fast.

  We were looking at the facade of Hotel Yak and Yeti, the hundred-year-old palace from the Rana dynasty that had been turned into a five-star hotel. The pink-and-white structure was only five storeys tall, but encompassed the grand courtyard inside.

  ‘The American woman, Julie, is staying here,’ I told Shabnam.

  All the lights were blazing. In Kathmandu, the electricity went off at night, except at hotels rated four stars and above. I wanted to watch for longer, but it wasn’t as fun being there with Shabnam as I’d thought it would be.

  ‘The Shangri-La is nicer,’ she said.

  I knew she was jealous. Neither of us had stayed at either the Yak and Yeti or the Shangri-La. We turned the bike around and drove for another half an hour back to Balkot.

  At the edge of town, I stopped the bike on an empty road, grass fields on either side. I didn’t have to catch Shabnam, whose pink shirt stuck to her stomach and peeled off easily. The grass was dry and prickled when I leaned over. Her lipstick was bright pink. Her body beneath me, I stared out at the bike parked nearby. In the dark, everything lay low and lumpy: the rubbish piled along the bank of a creek in the distance, the rubble on the road, and the unfinished cement houses, all without lights. Even when I was inside her I felt as if I could just get up and walk away.

  Shabnam didn’t say a word. I had to ask her what was wrong and she seemed to relish taking her time to answer.

  ‘You know you’re never going to be better than this,’ she said, giving me a dirty look.

  I thought of the different things I could do: hit her, drive away and leave her there, or tell her that she didn’t know what she was talking about, that I didn’t care about the art.

  ‘That’s not what this is about,’ I said, and then drove her home.

  On the morning of the opening, Manna stood behind me as I looked in the mirror. She fiddled with the sleeves of my shirt, making it bag around my arms. The skin on my forehead was dark and shiny and a new pimple was erupting on my chin.

  ‘You used too much gel on my hair!’ I shouted, swatting her away.

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that,’ Manna growled, combing the hair off my forehead.

  Everybody knew about Julie and the exhibition. In conversations, I secretly waited for someone to bring it up and they always did. The art and journalism students had been asking to swap work with me. Buwa, however, had commented that Julie had a nicer house for her exhibition than he had for his children, even though I was his only child and our house was bigger. Manna complained that Julie was too skinny and her hair was too short, like a boy’s.

  There were a lot of white people at the opening, including students from Trinity International College and a university in Abu Dhabi. Buwa had said he would come, but I hadn’t seen him yet. Julie stood up and welcomed a foreign photographer, whose work had been printed in National Geographic. Then she paused and lowered her gaze.

  ‘The Nepalese Civil War was a war wreaked on civilians. Seventeen thousand, eight hundred people died.’ Her voice was so calm it was almost sinister. She had on a new set of rings. ‘As we gather the stories of rebels and local people, we begin to give power back to the civilians of Nepal. There is power in taking control of our narratives.’

  Her smooth, American-accented English was so different from ours. After the applause, Julie took the foreign photographer around the exhibition.

  Most of the pictures were of blo
odied bodies on the battlefield. I felt no real connection to them. All I knew of the war, which had ended five years ago, in 2006, were the long years of discussion: ageing activists studying constitutions, harassed journalists posing dead-end questions, sweaty professors shouting through slideshows, living rooms dense with the musk of frustrated old men and smoky chai. Buwa was once excited for me to study politics. But by the time I was old enough for university, he had already shut out the war, and it became easy for me to ignore it too. I had grown sick of talks about what Nepal was, who the Nepalese people were, what communism was and what democracy was. I didn’t feel certain about any of those things the way my classmates seemed to be. So Buwa and I abided by the curfews in the final year of the war and waited out the protests from our house in Balkot, arranging and rearranging the furniture. I wondered if Julie knew I had never been at a protest or on a battlefield. I had never even seen someone die.

  My photograph was of Aakar’s mother crying at his burial. Aakar, a friend of my friend from university, died in the Badarmude bus explosion. As I walked towards the photograph on the wall, I imagined his mother’s eyes boring into me, and I was filled with dread. What if Aakar’s mother, or somebody who knew her, came to the exhibition?

  I stared at the image of her sagging dark skin, her sharp chin and her large, sad eyes. She had not noticed when I’d trained the lens on her, which made it a better photograph than the other ones I had taken. Her face filled the whole frame. Her mouth was downturned and tears pooled in a deep crease on her left cheek.

  I felt a hand on my back and knew it was Julie’s.

  ‘Ngodup. You should be proud,’ she said earnestly.

  It struck me suddenly how far she had travelled to be here and how different her real life must be.

  ‘What do you like about it?’ I asked.

  She had that startled look again. She turned to the photo.

  ‘It’s so full of life,’ she said.