As in his conjuring tricks, however, everything here was fake. The book he had picked up randomly from the Billy bookcase was nothing but a plastic brick in a book jacket, the television in the living room boasted no more electronic components than an aquarium, and not a single drop of hot water (or cold water, for that matter) would ever drip from the tap in the bathroom.
Nevertheless, the idea of spending the night here began to germinate in his mind. After all, he had not reserved a hotel room, for financial reasons, and his aeroplane did not take off until 1 p.m. the next day. And all the money he had was his counterfeit €100 note, which he would need to buy the bed. And the invisible elastic would not work forever.
Relieved at knowing where he would be sleeping that night, Ajatashatru was now free to concentrate on his mission.
AJATASHATRU HAD NEVER seen so many chairs, spaghetti tongs and lamps in his life. Here, within arm’s reach, an abundance of objects stretched out before his wonder-filled eyes. He was ignorant of the function of quite a few of them, but that hardly mattered. It was the sheer quantity that excited him. This was a true Aladdin’s cave. There were objects everywhere. If his cousin had been there with him, he would have said: ‘Look at that! And that! And that too!’, leaping from one display to the next, touching everything he saw as if he were a little boy.
But he was all alone, so he could only say ‘Look at that! And that! And that too!’ to himself, and if he leapt from one display to the next, touching everything he saw as if he were a little boy, people were likely to conclude that he was a madman. In his village, mad people were beaten with long wooden sticks. He had no desire to find out if a kinder fate awaited the insane in France.
The sight of all these salad bowls and microwave ovens reminded him that he came from a very different world. To think that if he had not come here, he would perhaps never have known that such a place existed! He would have to tell his cousin all about this. If only Parthasarathy could be here too. Ajatashatru found it difficult to enjoy all these new discoveries on his own. When he was away from his family, he missed them so much that even the most jaw-dropping landscapes seemed boring and bland.
As he was thinking this, Ajatashatru arrived at the bedroom section. In front of him were a dozen beds, each arrayed with bright and colourful duvets labelled with improbable and unpronounceable names. Mysa Strå, Mysa Rönn, Mysa Rosenglim (was this some kind of word game with letters picked up randomly?). Soft and fluffy pillows, thrown on the beds in neat patterns – or, rather, placed neatly on the beds in a way that suggested they had been thrown – coaxed customers to lie down and take a nap.
A couple lay decorously on a Birkeland, their minds filled with visions of the delightful nights they would spend there together. Perhaps they would even make a child in that bed? Indeed, a sign written in French and English informed visitors that one baby in ten was conceived in an Ikea bed. Ajatashatru was pretty sure that the population of India had not been included in this statistic.
This idyllic scene was rudely shattered when two children jumped like savages onto an Årviksand and began a very loud and violent pillow fight. The young couple, lying two beds down from this battle, got up in a panic and fled towards the bathroom section, indefinitely postponing all plans for procreation.
Ajatashatru did not hang around this now-hostile environment either, and wove nimbly between the bedside tables. Not that he didn’t like children. Quite the contrary, in fact. He was simply not interested in any of the models of bed on display. What he was looking for did not seem to be located in this section.
He noticed three employees, dressed in the store’s colours – yellow and blue, the colours of the Swedish flag, like the sari worn by the beautiful Swedish woman who had served him tandoori chicken in his imagination – but they all seemed busy with other customers. So he went over to one of the three and waited his turn.
The sales assistant he had chosen was a short fat man wearing green-tinted glasses, diamond earrings and a toupee, the kind of person who would be caught within minutes were anyone ever to witness him committing a crime. He was busy with his computer, occasionally lifting his head to look at the customers in front of him before returning his full attention to the screen. A few minutes later, he grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer and handed it to the couple who, apparently satisfied, walked quickly away, eager to tell their friends that Sir Elton John was now working in Ikea and that he had just sold them a shoe cabinet.
After checking that the sales assistant spoke English, Ajatashatru asked him if they had the latest model of the Hertsyörbåk bed of nails on display. To illustrate his query, he unfolded the piece of paper he had retrieved from his jacket pocket and handed it to the employee.
It was a colour photograph of a bed for fakirs made of real Swedish pine, available in three colours, with stainless-steel nails of adjustable length. The page had been torn from the June 2012 Ikea catalogue, 198 million copies of which had been printed worldwide, double the annual print run of the Bible.
Several models were available: 200 nails (very expensive and extremely dangerous), 500 nails (affordable and comfortable), and 15,000 nails (very cheap and, paradoxically, very comfortable). Above the bed, a slogan boasted: Sharpen your senses! The price of €99.99 (for the model with 15,000 nails) was displayed in large yellow figures.
‘We no longer have that model in stock,’ explained the Elton John of self-assembly furniture in very good English. ‘It sold out.’
Seeing the distress on the Indian’s face at this news, he hastened to add: ‘But you can always order one.’
‘How long would that take?’ asked Ajatashatru, deeply concerned at the idea that he had come all this way for nothing.
‘You could have it tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow morning?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘In that case, I’ll take it.’
Pleased to have satisfied his customer, the employee sent his fingers scurrying over the keyboard.
‘Your name please?’
‘Mr Rathod (pronounced Rat-head). Ajatashatru . . . you spell it the way it sounds.’
‘Oh gosh!’ the employee exclaimed, stumped.
Then, more out of laziness than convenience, he wrote an X in the box while the Indian wondered how this European had known that his second name was Oghash.
‘So, that’s a Hertsyörbåk fakir special in real Swedish pine, with stainless-steel nails of adjustable length. What colour?’
‘What are the options?’
‘Puma red, tortoise blue or dolphin green.’
‘I don’t really see how the colours relate to the animals,’ admitted Ajatashatru, who did not really see how the colours related to the animals in question.
‘It’s marketing,’ the Frenchman shrugged. ‘It’s beyond the likes of us.’
‘Oh. All right then, puma red.’
The sales assistant’s fingers spidered frantically over the keyboard again.
‘All done. You may come to fetch it tomorrow, any time after 10 a.m. Can I help you with anything else?’
‘Yes, just a quick question, out of curiosity. How come the model with fifteen thousand nails is three times cheaper than the two-hundred-nail model, which is much more dangerous?’
The man peered at Ajatashatru over the frames of his glasses, as though he did not understand.
‘I have the feeling you don’t understand my question,’ said the fakir. ‘What I mean is: what kind of idiot would buy a bed that is more expensive, far less comfortable and much more dangerous?’
‘When you have spent a whole week hammering the fifteen thousand nails into the fifteen thousand holes in the wood, sir, you will no longer be asking that question. Indeed, you will regret not having bought the two-hundred-nail model, even if it is more expensive, less comfortable and more dangerous. Believe me!’
Ajatashatru nodded and took the €100 note from his wallet, being careful not to show the assistant its blank side. He had re
moved the invisible thread, as he would be handing the note over for good this time. The mission was about to be accomplished. Right here and right now.
‘This is not where you pay, sir. You have to go downstairs, to the tills. And you will pay tomorrow. That will be €115.89.’
Ajatashatru would have fallen over backwards had he not, at that moment, been gripping tightly to the piece of paper that the Frenchman, smiling, had handed to him.
‘One hundred and fifteen euros and eighty-nine centimes?’ he repeated in an offended tone.
‘Ninety-nine euros and ninety-nine centimes was the promotional price. It expired last week. Look, it’s written here.’
With these words, the sales assistant pointed with one pudgy finger to a line of text at the bottom of the page so small that the letters might have been ant footprints.
‘Ah.’
The Indian’s world collapsed around him.
‘I hope you are satisfied with our service. If so, please tell everyone you know. If not, there is no need to bother. Thank you and goodbye, sir.’
At this, the young Sir Elton, considering the conversation to be over, turned his large head and his dolphin-green glasses towards the woman who was standing behind Ajatashatru.
‘Hello, madame, what can I do for you?’
The fakir moved out of the way to let the lady past. Then he stared worriedly at his €100 note, wondering how on earth he could get hold of the extra €15.89 by ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
ON A LARGE sign displayed close to the tills, Ajatashatru read that the store closed at 8 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So, at around 7.45 p.m. – he read the time on a plastic Swatch worn by a voluptuous blonde woman – he thought it a good idea to gravitate once more to the bedroom section.
After glancing discreetly around, he slid underneath a luridly coloured bed. Just then, a woman’s robotic voice boomed from the loudspeakers. Despite the fact that he was lying down, the Indian jumped, smashing his head against the wooden slats that supported the mattress. He would never have believed it possible to jump from a horizontal position.
All his senses alert, the fakir imagined the store security guards, already in position on top of the wardrobes, pointing their sniper rifles at the Birkeland under which he was hiding, while a Franco-Swedish commando team moved stealthily and quickly to surround the bed. Inside his chest, his heart was beating to the rhythm of a Bollywood soundtrack. He undid the safety pin that held his tie in place and unbuttoned his shirt in order to breathe more easily. He feared the end of his adventure was drawing near.
After a few minutes spent holding his breath, however, no one had come to remove him from under the bed, and he deduced that the voice on the loudspeaker had merely been announcing that the store was closing.
He breathed out and waited.
A FEW HOURS earlier, just after his conversation with the sales assistant, Ajatashatru had felt hungry and headed towards the restaurant.
He did not know what time it was. And, indoors, it was impossible to calculate it from the sun’s position in the sky. His cousin Pakmaan (pronounced Pacman) had once told him that there were no clocks in Las Vegas casinos. That way, the customers did not notice time passing and spent much more money than they had intended to spend. Ikea must have copied this technique because, although there were clocks on the walls for sale, none of them had batteries. However, whether he knew the time or not, spending more money was a luxury that Ajatashatru could not permit himself.
The Indian looked at other customers’ wrists, and finally saw the time on a sporty black watch that apparently belonged to someone called Patek Philippe.
It was 2.35 p.m.
With no other money in his pocket than the €100 note that his cousin Parthasarathy had printed for him, on one side only, and which, when added to €15.89 in change, would enable him to buy his new bed of nails, Ajatashatru walked into the restaurant. His nostrils were teased by the scents of cooked meat and fish with lemon.
He went to the back of the queue, behind a woman in her forties, slim and tanned with long blonde hair, dressed in a rather bourgeois style. The perfect victim, thought Ajatashatru, as he moved closer to her. She smelt of expensive perfume. Her hands, with their burgundy-painted fingernails, picked up a plate and some cutlery.
This was the moment chosen by the Indian to take a pair of fake Police sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. He moved a little closer to the woman, and took his turn picking up a plate, a knife that did not seem likely to cut anything, and a fork with blunt prongs just like those that he used to stick in his tongue. He leaned into the woman’s back and counted in his head. Three, two, one. At that very moment, feeling discomfited by the closeness of the person behind her, the Frenchwoman turned round, banging her shoulder into Ajatashatru’s sunglasses and sending them flying through the air to the ground, where they smashed into several pieces. Bingo!
‘MY GOSH!’ the fakir cried out, staring distraught at the sunglasses before putting his plate down and kneeling to retrieve the broken pieces.
He did not wish to overdo the melodrama.
‘Oh, je suis embarrassed!’ the lady said, bending down to help him.
Ajatashatru looked sadly at the six pieces of smoky blue glass that he held in the palm of his hand as the woman handed him the gold-coloured frames.
‘I am sorry. I’m so clumsy.’
Wincing, the con man shrugged, as if to say it was not important. ‘Never mind. It’s OK.’
‘Oh, but oui, it minds. It minds beaucoup! I am going to compensate you.’
Ajatashatru clumsily attempted to put the bits of glass back in their frame. But as soon as he managed to secure one, another would immediately fall out into his hand.
As this was happening, the woman was rummaging through her handbag in search of her purse. She took out a €20 note and apologised for not being able to give him more.
The Indian politely refused. But the bourgeois lady insisted, so finally he took the note and shoved it in his pocket.
‘Thank you. It is very kind of you.’
‘It is normal, it is normal. And also, the meal is for me.’
Ajatashatru put the broken sunglasses in his trouser pocket and picked up his plate.
How easy life was for thieves. In a few seconds, he had just earned the €15.89 he needed to buy the Hertsyörbåk bed, plus €4.11 in pocket money. He also got a free meal (tomatoes with paprika, a salmon wrap with chips, a banana and a glass of flat Coca-Cola) and some charming company for his lunch that day. As she too was on her own, Marie Rivière (that was her name) had suggested that they eat their meal together, as well as insisting she pay for his food in return for breaking his sunglasses.
So there they were: the victim and the con man, the antelope and the lion, sitting at the same table, she shrieking with laughter at the stories told by this unusual person in a suit and turban. If someone from Kishanyogoor were to witness this scene, they would probably not believe their eyes. Ajatashatru, who had sworn a vow of chastity and chosen a balanced diet of organic nails and bolts, sitting at a table with a charming European lady while stuffing himself with smoked salmon and chips! In his village, a photograph of such an event would mean the immediate loss of his fakir’s licence, perhaps even the shaving of his moustache. Probably a quick death sentence too, while they were at it.
‘For some things, to be unfortunate is good,’ the lady said, blushing. ‘If I do not break your glasses, we do not meet. And then, I never see your beautiful eyes.’1
Perhaps it was not a woman’s place to say that, Marie thought. Perhaps it was not for her to make the first move. But she really did think that the Indian had beautiful, Coca-Cola-coloured eyes, with sparkles in the irises reminiscent of the bubbles in the famous American soda – the very bubbles cruelly absent from the glass of Coke that Ajatashatru was currently drinking. Beautiful bubbles . . . or perhaps they were stars? Anyway, she was now at an age where, if she wanted something, she reac
hed out and took it. Life was passing so quickly these days. Here was the proof that a minor accident in a queue at Ikea could sometimes provide better results than a three-year subscription to Match.com.
The man smiled, embarrassed. His moustache pointed up at the ends like Hercule Poirot’s, dragging with it all the rings that hung from his pierced lips. Marie thought those rings made him seem wild, virile, naughty . . . basically, everything she found attractive in a man. And yet his shirt was quite posh. It was an appealing mix. He looked exactly like the kind of man she often fantasised about.
‘Are you staying in Paris at the moment?’ she asked, trying to restrain her urges.
‘You could put it like that,’ replied the Rajasthani, not making it clear that he was going to spend the night in Ikea. ‘But I’m leaving tomorrow. I just came here to buy something.’
‘Something worth a round trip of four thousand miles . . .’ she observed sagely.
So the fakir explained that he had come to France with the intention of buying the latest bed of nails to come on the market. A nail mattress was a bit like a spring mattress: after a certain time, it became worn out. The tips of the nails grew blunt, and they had to be changed.
Of course, he did not mention that he was flat broke and that his journey here (he had chosen Paris as it was the cheapest destination he had found on an Internet search engine) had been funded by the inhabitants of his native village, who, believing him to have magic powers, had hoped to help cure the poor fakir of his rheumatism by buying him a new bed. This was, in fact, a sort of pilgrimage. Ikea was his version of the grotto in Lourdes.
While he was telling her all this, Ajatashatru felt embarrassed, for the first time in his life, by his own lies. For him, not telling the truth had become second nature. But there was something about Marie that made the act more difficult. He found this Frenchwoman so pure, so gentle and friendly. He felt as if he were dishonouring her somehow. And dishonouring himself at the same time. It was rather disconcerting for him, this new feeling, this shadow of guilt. Marie had a beautiful face that shone with innocence and kindness. The face of a porcelain doll filled with that humanity which he himself had lost during his battle to survive in the hostile jungle of his childhood.
The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe Page 2
