On the dashboard, a taxi driver’s licence with a black-and-white photograph indicated that the man’s name was Gustave Palourde, that he was a pure-blooded gypsy, and that his number was 45828.
‘Why are there bouquets of flowers stuck to the doors?’ Marie asked.
This is going to be a long journey, thought Gustave, who was already imagining his customer with an Indian zip on her mouth.
Annoyed, he explained: ‘My daughter is getting married tomorrow.’
His fingers drummed out a castanet solo on the steering wheel.
‘Congratulations!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘You must be so proud and happy!’
The driver hesitated for a moment.
‘It’s a good match, yeah.’
‘Oh, don’t say that! Isn’t your daughter marrying for love?’
‘Palourdes don’t marry for love, madame; we marry for the good of the family. Love comes later. Or not, as the case may be . . .’
‘And you’re working until the day before the wedding!’ Marie observed, to steer the conversation into less dangerous waters.
‘I have to earn the money to pay for the couple’s new caravan.’
‘I understand,’ said the Frenchwoman, who did not understand.
How could people camp all their lives, and voluntarily too? It was difficult to grasp for Marie, who had never in her life stooped to sleeping anywhere but in a large, comfortable bed. Not even on a sofa.
‘Where is the groom from?’
‘He’s Spanish.’
‘From where?’
‘He’s from Barcelona,’ said Gustave testily, then continued before the woman could ask him another question: ‘He’s going to come and live here, in Paris, in our community. That was the agreement. It’s usually the wife who follows her husband, but in the Palourde family it’s the women who decide. And me. The kid comes from a big gypsy family in Barcelona. I’m glad our blood lines will be mixed.’
‘A mixed marriage,’ said Marie, watching the road thoughtfully. ‘Mixing is so wonderful. Actually, as we’re on that subject, the person I’m meeting at the airport is not French. He’s my fiancé.’ She did not feel she was lying when she said this, only anticipating. ‘He’s Indian. With a little luck, we’ll be celebrating a mixed marriage too, one day . . .’
What on earth had got into her to think things like that? And to say things like that? People really did like to confide in strangers.
Marie continued to stare at an imaginary point on the road ahead of her, somewhere between the two headrests. She imagined herself with Ajatashatru, wearing a nice sari, surrounded by bright colours, rose petals thrown at their feet as they passed. A real princess.
‘Indian . . .’ repeated the driver, who also looked thoughtful. ‘To be perfectly honest, madame, I have no great love for Indians.’
Saying this, Gustave let go of the steering wheel with his right hand so he could caress the ivory-handled Opinel knife that never left the front pocket of his trousers.
‘I knew one who was a very bad person. A thief. And, let me tell you, if our paths ever cross again, I will make him suffer for his sins . . .’
‘Oh, you mustn’t generalise. They’re not all like that,’ said Marie, who held back from mentioning that many people had the same opinion of gypsies. ‘Mine is an honest man. A writer.’
‘A writer?’ said the taxi driver, who had never read anything other than street maps of Paris.
‘I would be honoured to introduce him to you. Would you wait for me, when we get to the airport? That way, I won’t have to find another taxi and you will get to meet Ajatashatru. I can’t wait to introduce him to you. He will change your opinion of Indians, I’m sure.’
‘That is all I ask, dear lady.’
The flower-covered Mercedes sped along the motorway. The sun was slowly setting, painting the trees and buildings orange.
The taxi driver slapped himself on the forehead, then looked at his watch.
‘You know what? It actually works out well that you’re going to the airport. My cousin Gino is arriving from Rome. I didn’t think I’d be able to pick him up. He’s coming for my daughter’s wedding. He’s going to do her hair. So if you don’t mind, while you go to pick up your boyfriend, I’ll pick up Gino and we can all meet back at the taxi. What do you think? Would it bother you to share a taxi with my cousin?’
‘Oh no, of course not!’ Marie exclaimed delightedly. ‘Quite the contrary. The more the merrier!’
Little did she know just how true this would prove.
CHAPTER THREE
As Devanampiya collapsed suddenly on the cold, damp floor of the prison, Walid asked another prisoner what was happening and learned that his friend was dead.
So Walid cried. (I checked: blind people do cry.) He cried his heart out that night. His sobs could be heard as far away as his home, in Afghanistan.
He had lost a friend, his only friend, and with him, he had also lost the ability to see. Under these circumstances, prison would soon become a hell again.
CHAPTER FOUR
When Walid woke up that afternoon, he was surrounded by three doctors. Had he not been blind, he would have seen that the grey, filthy walls of his cell were now white, shiny walls. The floor was so clean that you could eat off it. And it was full of medical equipment, making it look more like a hospital room than a prison cell.
The blind man attempted to sit up. A hand pushed him back down while a loud voice spoke to him in a language he did not understand but which he identified as being Sinhala.
He wanted to ask what was happening, but when he opened his mouth he noticed that there was a tube inside it that prevented him from speaking.
Another series of incomprehensible sounds ordered him not to move or tire himself out.
Walid lay back down without asking any questions, his mind tormented by the confusing situation, until, a few hours later, an Afghan interpreter was sent to his bedside and the tube removed.
The patient could now communicate with his doctors.
‘What is your name?’
‘Walid Nadjib.’
‘Good,’ said the doctor, as if he had been verifying something he already knew. ‘I am Dr Devanampiya. Do you know where you are at this moment?’
Devanampiya? Walid was dumbstruck. He did not understand. Then again, perhaps it was a common name in these parts?
‘In prison,’ he muttered.
‘In prison?’
Apparently, this was not the correct answer.
‘You are in Colombo Military Hospital.’
‘What am I doing here?’ Walid asked fearfully. ‘Am I ill?’
He remembered the devastating death of his friend when he came back from his walk. Had he suffered the same fate?
‘You are the only survivor of a terrorist attack. There was a large explosion on the aeroplane you took. A 747 heading to London. In all likelihood, a suicide bomber managed to make his way through security with a fairly powerful explosive device. When you were found amid the debris, you were in a terrible state, let me tell you. You were in a coma for two months and we really thought it was all over for you. But, a few hours ago, you woke up. It’s a miracle, in my opinion. One of the most devastating attacks of the century. Two hundred and eighteen dead, and only one survivor.’
No matter how hard he tried, the blind man could not remember a thing. Or rather, his memories did not correspond at all with what the doctor was telling him, as if he had been living a parallel life up until that moment. What he remembered was the police arresting him just after he got through security, then the prison in Colombo, then Devanampiya’s death. But now he learned that all of this had been merely a figment of his imagination, a coma dream. He discovered – from the mouths of people who had no suspicions at all, particularly not of a poor blind man who had survived a terrorist attack – that his mission had succeeded. As to why he wasn’t dead when the explosives had been hidden inside his white cane, he had no idea. Perhaps a steward had t
aken it from him while he helped him onto the aeroplane, and then forgotten to give it back to him? Whatever the truth of this, Walid thanked his lucky stars and wept with joy, demonstrating that blind people can indeed cry.
Impossible, thought Aja. I cannot possibly end my novel like that. I can’t conclude this book in such a horrible way. The killer cannot triumph. This ending might well be more original than the other one, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s bad, very bad. And, above all, immoral.
Immorality was a new concept for him.
He screwed the three pages into a ball and threw them in the metal bucket under the table. The budding writer did not know the tricks of writing a good story, but in the few books he had read that were not about prestidigitation, he had noticed that, no matter how dark or hard the stories were, they usually finished with a happy ending, a hint of hope. As if the story were a long dark tunnel and the last page the light at the end.
Perhaps he would quite simply never manage to rewrite the ending of his novel. Perhaps he did not deserve the €100,000 they had given him and the trust they had put in him.
This story of the blind terrorist: he had no idea where it had come from. But the character was not like him at all, or at least it was not at all like the man he was now. He wanted the story in his book to provide some hope, if only out of respect for the wonderful people he had met during his adventure. Those men and women, black and white, Sophie and Assefa and all the others, what they had in common was a big heart. So why not tell the story of that fabulous journey which had changed him forever? It was a true story, too, not an invention. It was his story. It was what had made him the man he was today. Not only that, but it finished well. He had found a woman and a new family: the true happy ending. The kind of light that shone brightly after the long dark tunnel of his life.
Next he considered a title, because he thought this was how novels were started. ‘What do you think of The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe?’ he wondered aloud, as if the little dog from the aeroplane hold was there, witnessing the birth of his new book. He imagined it barking three times to encourage him.
This title summed up his story nicely. The story of Ajatashatru Oghash Rathod, man of the world, formerly a fakir, now a writer, the man who discovered Europe in an unusual way, by wardrobe, trunk, hot-air balloon, ship and baggage carousel.
He thought for a few moments.
When he finally came up with the first sentence of his new novel – The first word spoken by the Indian man Ajatashatru Oghash Rathod upon his arrival in France was, oddly enough, a Swedish word – he glanced out of the window and grinned happily, that satisfied smile that great men make when they know they are on their way to achieving great things. Then he gingerly touched the large bandage that covered his ribs, took a deep breath and left the caravan.
The sounds of guitar music, shouting and castanets assailed his ears. For a brief moment, he thought the nightmare that had so disturbed him in Italy had come to life. He saw himself transformed into a chopped (holy) cow, roasting on the end of a skewer with his cousin turned into a cherry tomato, turning round and round over the fire to the music of the Gipsy Kings. The horror!
He leaned against the caravan door. His heart felt as if it were going to burst out of his chest.
‘What have you been up to?’ asked an Indian princess, who turned out to be Marie dressed in a green tunic.
Relieved not to be a (holy) cow roasted medium-rare, Ajatashatru let go of the door, leaned on the arm of his beloved, and walked with her towards the multicoloured crowd.
‘Nothing. I was just writing. I had an idea, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it.’
‘No writing today. Today, we celebrate!’
With these words, the Frenchwoman kissed him, then took his hand and danced a few steps of a flamenco. Next to her, a young blonde gypsy girl dressed in a hot-pink wedding dress slammed the wooden heels of her shoes on a table.
At that moment, a fat-bellied man dropped his guitar, got up and came towards the Indian. When he was close enough not to be heard by anyone else, he whispered to him: ‘No hard feelings, eh, I-had-to-slash-you? I hope you’re not angry with me for that little knife wound.’
He put his hand on the Indian’s ribs. Even without an ice cooler in his hand, Gustave Palourde remained a threatening presence.
‘But don’t forget our agreement, gorgio. If you hadn’t promised to amuse the kids with your magic tricks, even this handsome €500 note wouldn’t have stopped me turning you into an Indian sieve, you know . . .’
As Marie was watching them from a few feet away, happy and tipsy and utterly carefree, Ajatashatru felt obliged to smile. He looked around until he found the children, took a deep breath, and pushed his way through the crowd.
NOT LONG AFTER Miranda-Jessica and Tom Cruise-Jesús’s wedding, Ajatashatru proposed to his beloved after a romantic meal at Métamorphose, an old barge moored on the Seine that had been transformed into a restaurant and cabaret with a magic show. With the aid of the local illusionist – a man who had mixed with the most famous people on Earth and whose face smiled out from posters all over the boat – he made an engagement ring appear on a little Indian silk handkerchief, which was carried by a mechanical butterfly with yellow-and-blue wings and dropped delicately onto Marie’s shoulder. The Indian remake of an 1845 trick by magician and watchmaker Robert-Houdin.
During the meal, and before the Frenchwoman discovered to her amazement the beautiful ring hidden inside the handkerchief, the two lovers had shared a little of their intimacy – at least in their thoughts – with their family and friends.
Ajatashatru’s four favourite cousins (in order of preference: Parthasarathy, Ghanashyam, Nysatkharee and Pakmaan) and Adishree, with whom the couple regularly kept in touch, were planning to come and visit them soon in their little Montmartre apartment. Perhaps they would stay and become estate agents in Paris. The Eiffel Tower was still for sale, after all.
The global success of Ajatashatru’s book had enabled Assefa to track down the Indian exile and write him a letter to congratulate him and thank him once again for his generosity. With the money, they had built a school in Assefa’s village and rescued several families from poverty and hunger. The flies remained, however: there was nothing to be done about them.
Now that Sophie Morceaux had discovered the truth behind Ajatashatru’s actions, she was no longer angry with her friend for running off with a briefcase full of cash and not even a word of goodbye. The two of them now shared the same manager, Hervé, whose hands were as clammy as always.
Ajatashatru was no longer just a man who wrote stories. Having quickly developed a taste for helping others – addicted as he was to the cloud of pleasure that lifted him high into the sky whenever he performed good deeds – he had, with the aid of Marie and the huge royalties he had earned from his book, set up an association that welcomed and helped those most in need.
Ikea’s designers, moved by what Ajatashatru had been through in the truck that took him to England, had started work on a brand-new model of wardrobe complete with a toilet and a survival kit. It would undoubtedly prove to be their best-selling item in the coming months on the Greek-Turkish border.
Finally, the lovers talked about the latest shipwreck: the boat that had disappeared with seventy-six migrants on board, somewhere between Libya and Italy. At that moment, several Guárdia di Finanza helicopters were flying over the Mediterranean in search of the ship. Despite the best efforts of the rescuers, they would never find it, nor would they find the lifeless body of a young Somalian – a seventeen-year-old boy called Ismael – who had boarded the ship one morning, full of hope, after Allah had given him a sign by dropping a €500 note at his feet, enabling him to pay for his crossing.
During that candlelit dinner, 854 migrants would attempt to illegally cross the borders into the ‘good countries’ so that they too could enjoy that wonderful box of chocolates. Only thirty
-one of them would make it, with fear in their guts when the truck slowed down but did not stop.
To this day, Officer Simpson has not discovered a single other illegal alien hidden inside an Ikea wardrobe. This is perhaps because his boss, having read Ajatashatru Oghash Rathod’s novel and discovered his innocence, had promoted Rajha Simpson to a position as crossing-keeper at the docks in Dover. The police officer’s most notable activity is now throwing dried bread to the seagulls, which he hopes will soon become an Olympic discipline.
Marie said yes, of course.
Kneeling in front of her, Ajatashatru slipped the pretty engagement ring onto her finger. Then he stood up and gave her a long, passionate kiss as everyone smiled and applauded. A few days later, a famous Indian dressmaker in the Passage Brady in Paris took Marie’s measurements so he could create a sumptuous red-and-gold sari for her.
The car that will take her from Montmartre to the Hindu temple has already been reserved. It is an old red Mercedes, slightly dented, with a bunch of Ikea saucepans tied to its bumper. Their clinking and clanking will be heard all the way to the distant starlit dunes of the Tharthar Desert.
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Epub ISBN: 9781448191413
Version 1.0
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Harvill Secker 2014
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Copyright © Le Dilettante 2013
English translation copyright © Sam Taylor 2014
Romain Puértolas has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe Page 16
