Sweetness and Light

by Liam Pieper

  ‘Thongs? Thongs!’ Baba is delighted. ‘Like the underwear? What a world.’

  The car crunches to a halt at a farm. To one side, a bank of banana trees crowds the road. To the other, a stretch of brackish swamp feeds into a stagnant backwater. A solitary water buffalo looks up, finds nothing of interest, returns to rooting around in the mud. Its tail swishes flies away as the men climb from the car.

  The Russian goon with the Kremlin tattoo hauls Connor out of the truck and onto his shoulder. The layers of fat and muscle make it feel like he is being brutalised by an overstuffed couch.

  From his perch on the goon’s shoulder Connor catches a glimpse of a wide, muddy trench, penned in on three sides by banks of earth. For a second Connor thinks he is going to be pitched into the mud with his hands tied, left to drown, but he is dumped at Baba’s feet, the fall knocking the air out of him. He tries to roll away and the goon lands a precise kick on his lowest rib. Connor whimpers and goes still.

  Baba whistles and the Russian grabs him by the hair, drags him to the lip of the trench. Down below he sees four huge hogs trot to the edge of the pit. He turns his head and sees a wooden shack, held over the pigsty by buttresses. It’s a pig-latrine – Connor’s used them a thousand times.

  He understands what is going to happen. The foggy, detached cool that’s held him since Baba’s men first started working him over deserts him. He starts to thrash and a handful of his hair comes out in the Russian’s fist, prompting a punch in his cracked ribcage to make him still.

  ‘I apologise for the smell,’ says Baba. ‘But I wanted to show you this place. It’s peaceful. This is where I come to think, solve my problems.’

  One of the men wanders off to somewhere just outside of Connor’s peripheral vision. Connor hears the creak of something being opened, then a dragging sound, and the guy reappears, heaving a stained hessian sack. Together with his friend, they haul the sack over the rim of the sty, and the air fills with squealing, the sound of ripping cloth, and skin, and cracking bones, and Connor’s will gives out.

  ‘Wait!’ he croaks. ‘Wait. I have a mark. I found talent. She’s got money. Real money.’

  It is just before dawn when Sasha creeps into the dormitory where the orphaned children sleep. It has taken her all night to decide what to do. Really, it’s taken her her whole life. She can’t save these children, or the guru, or this place she’s made, this fortress of moral vanity. In the night the ashram is alive with the slither and howl of unnameable things. She cannot change what is happening, she has no power here – does not, after all, belong. But neither does the one person she can maybe help.

  A few metres away, across the clearing, she can hear Pasteur waking up, the sound of a transistor radio crackling to life, the whine of a kettle as he makes his morning coffee. She doesn’t have much time.

  She cups one hand over Velli’s mouth as she wakes her – she feels awful doing this, but can’t afford for her to make a scene. She needn’t have worried – the girl’s eyes snap open, roll about, but she makes no sound, sits up silently. Sasha motions for Velli to follow, and together they slip out of the dormitory and into the jungle. Sasha takes her by the hand, tells her they are going to go on a little trip and Velli, still rubbing sleep from her eyes, nods.

  They go on foot – Sasha cannot risk a motorcycle, cannot risk even a flashlight as they creep through the jungle towards her quarters. She’s already packed all her things, enough money and food for her and Velli to survive until she can figure out the next step. She’s well aware that she’s winging it, already making mistakes. In the night the jungle is cool and misty, poor Velli shivering in her nightdress. Sasha kicks herself for not dressing her in something warmer.

  It takes her longer than she had anticipated to track through the jungle. Velli stumbles behind her, confused, pulling at Sasha’s hand like a dead weight. The sun is up by the time she reaches her bungalow and she curses herself for planning this so badly. She’s worried that the house dogs that sleep on her porch will smell the strange scent of the child and go wild, waking the whole ashram, but no, they lie undisturbed, perfectly still in the shadow of the hut. She’s so relieved that she does not register just how still they are, or take in the dark pool of liquid staining the dirt beneath them.

  She kicks in the door and enters the gloom of the shack. The door slams behind her and she jumps, then gasps as her eyes adjust. The room is full of men, huge in the cramped space, some of them stooping to avoid the ceiling beams. One of them moves to a pile of rags in the middle of the floor and kicks it, and it’s only when it groans and rolls over that she recognises Connor. The man who kicked Connor steps back and another, holding an old rifle in his hands, trains it lazily on the semi-conscious Australian. A man – tall, handsome, in a crisp white shirt, eyes like dead fish – steps in front of her and smiles warmly.

  ‘You must be Sasha,’ he says. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’

  He takes a step towards her, grabs her forearm and sinks his fingers deep into the nerve between her muscles. Her whole body seems to go limp. He’s raising his other hand to strike when, behind her, Velli cries out, a choked little bark. The man stops, freezes in mid-motion, and cranes his neck to see what made the noise.

  ‘Alright,’ he says. ‘Who’s the kid?’

  Baba is furious, discombobulated. His air of easy menace, the momentum of his violence, is thrown off by the little girl. He needs time to think. Leaving Connor sprawled on the floor of the cottage, the goons escort Sasha and Velli outside at gunpoint.

  Baba taps a cigarette out of his pack, lights it and draws deeply.

  ‘I’m sure there’s a story here,’ he says, after some thought. ‘I should probably hear it, but the sun’s coming up. Let’s take a drive.’

  Baba’s SUV and the jungle have clearly fought a war of attrition for it to reach this point – broken trees and trampled samplings attest to its path through the forest, and the car’s paint is badly scratched and muddied.

  Baba directs Sasha into shotgun position, climbs into the driver’s seat. Velli jumps onto the back seat, an immense gangster perched delicately on either side of her. One goon, a straggler, joins them a moment later, hauling the limp Connor over his shoulder. The car buckles and the suspension creaks in protest as the gangster bundles him into the cargo area, then tucks himself in next to him.

  The SUV crashes through the jungle, shredding the forest on either side where the path they made on the way in is still too narrow. As they approach the entrance, Baba guns the car faster and through. Sasha catches only a glimpse of the twisted gates lying at the side of the road, the elderly watchman face down in the mud.

  It’s only now that Sasha, who to this point has been pushed along by adrenaline and shock, remembers to be afraid. The dread hits her all at once, right in the gut, and it must show on her face because Baba pulls over just in time for her to haul open the door and puke her guts up.

  He watches, unimpressed, and when she’s done he leans over to open his glovebox, rummages through the tumult of snack food within, and hands her a little packet of candy-coated fennel seeds.

  ‘Mukhwas,’ he says. ‘For the taste.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve, then, ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ he says, putting the car back into gear. ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t.’

  And so Sasha tells him the story, all of it, from New York months ago, the yoga, falling in with the guru, Connor – confronting the guru and sneaking the girl out of the school that morning. Halfway through, the amused expression drops from Baba’s face. By the end he only looks straight ahead, brooding.

  Eventually he glances back at Velli. ‘Not much of a talker, are you?’

  Velli glares at him, which seems to delight Baba. He digs in the glovebox again to find a jaggery treat, sesame spun with raw sugar, bites a chunk off, chews thoughtfully, hands the rest to Velli. She takes it suspiciously, nods her th
anks.

  Baba pulls over and asks Sasha to take a walk with him. They are on the coastal highway, the ocean held in check by a rough retaining wall of broken concrete. The beach here is long gone, washed away with the changing tides as the world warms.

  Baba walks slowly, a little ahead of her, his hands clasped behind his back, eyes forward. Part of her wants to run, her adrenaline is spiking, urging her to sprint across the road and into the jungle. But she would never make it, feels the tremble in her knees, knows it will be there in her voice, too, when she speaks. She will not run. She is tethered here by Velli, by Connor, by the sense of destiny that has been pushing her along all this time, this feeling that all the misfortune in her life has been leading to this moment, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.

  When they are out of earshot of the car, Baba turns to Sasha.

  ‘Velli. Did they get to her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think . . . she’s okay. She’s going to be fine. I’m going to look after her.’ She pauses. ‘What are you going to do with Connor?’

  ‘Good question. Our friend Connor. He’s a creep, you know. Is the girl safe around him? He’s a real sneaky little bastard.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Sasha. ‘But not in that way.’

  ‘What are you wasting your time for? He’s not particularly . . . loyal.’

  Sasha doesn’t know, exactly. But she does know how easy it is for a life to go all wrong. One thing goes awry, and then you make a choice, and another, and one day you’ve been making bad choices for so long you’re appalled by who you’ve become.

  ‘I was lucky,’ Sasha tells Baba. ‘I had someone who cared for me. Would have done anything for me. Connor didn’t. Who knows how I would have gone if I’d had his life?’ She takes Baba’s arm, who’s squinting out to sea. ‘Did you have that? Someone who . . . made you who you are?’

  Baba squints a little harder, doesn’t look at Sasha. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘That little girl in that car – I was just like her once. So was Connor. So, I think, were you.’ Sasha is blinking back tears, but her voice is firm. ‘This is what I’m meant to do. I’m meant to get her out of here and give her a new life. And I think you’re meant to help.’

  Baba’s lip curls up, just a little, a rueful twitch. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Am I wrong?’

  ‘Ah fuck.’ Baba exhales heavily. He looks weary, all the playful mayhem gone from his face, which she notices for the first time is deeply lined, old worries criss-crossed by scars. He’s quiet for a while, lost in thought, and when he speaks it’s softly, all the bravado gone. He tells her he would like to let Connor go, didn’t want to have to come all this way to waste time and money and standing on a loose end, but he has his little empire to consider. He’s fought so hard for everything he has, sacrificed so much, and so many people. The world is wide and cruel. To start letting things slide, to show weakness, would be the end of him.

  ‘What’s the point of having power,’ he asks Sasha, ‘if you just throw it all away?’

  ‘What’s the point of having it if you can’t use it to do what you want?’ She shoots back. ‘What the point of you?’

  Baba’s eyes narrow. He takes a step towards Sasha. But then a sly grin lights up his face. ‘I like you, lady. You might be the only one here with brains in her head.’

  He steps away and rubs the back of his neck. ‘There is another way this could all go. A way for the little girl to start again, a whole new life, a chance to make it on her own.’ He sighs as though the offer is hurting him greatly. ‘The only thing is, it’s going to take money.’

  ‘Money’s not a problem,’ says Sasha. ‘Money I can get you.’

  Days later, Baba’s SUV rolls to a halt at the foot of an apartment block that looks out over the Bandra seafront. Baba climbs from the driver’s seat, stretches, fishes in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. Sasha slips out of the back seat, and Connor follows.

  ‘You know, all of this was built on trash. What the colonists threw away piled up here until there was enough to reclaim it as land.’ Baba leans back against the hood of his SUV, points to the wide, shady cobblestone streets beyond this esplanade. ‘The houses back there, that used to be seafront for the colonists. But if you’re careless for long enough, someone will make a dream out of what you threw away.’

  Baba gets back in his car, winds down the window. ‘Get on up to the apartment and wait. One of my men will be here in two weeks with your passports, and then get straight onto the plane. I don’t want to see you ever again.’

  ‘But aren’t we vulnerable, just waiting here?’ worries Sasha. ‘Won’t somebody come looking for us, for Velli?’

  ‘Americans,’ snorts Baba. ‘You think the whole world revolves around you. Believe me, nobody here cares who you are.’

  Baba is right. The truth is nobody looks twice at them – two rich white people and their adoptive child amongst the Portuguese townhouses and stores selling designer linen shirts. There is nothing exceptional about them here.

  In the evening they stroll the Bandra promenade, past the mangroves, past the floodplain, the field of litter stretching out to sea. Crows wheel and cry overhead – black as the ocean beneath.

  From their apartment, they can see the cage installed on the promenade where the wealthy take their dogs to let them off the leash. Connor sits in the window of their fifth-floor apartment, his fingers laced around the wrought-iron security cage, and watches Mumbaikars chatting while their puppies frolic. At night, when the cage is locked and abandoned, stray cats creep out of the mangrove to occupy it, fighting over scraps of dog biscuits and abandoned pav-bhaji. Connor doesn’t sleep, watches the cats.

  He isn’t the same after the beatings Baba’s men gave him. Sasha’s done what she can for him; rebroken his nose, immobilised his broken fingers. He’s lost a tooth or two, but then, he was already missing a few. That can be taken care of cheap once they reach Indonesia. His black eyes – ugly explosions of deep purple and yellow – well, she just finds him a pair of sunglasses.

  As the weeks pass in Mumbai, his body heals, but there is something wrong with him. His voice is changed, the slurred quality of his Australian accent a little deeper, the vowels looser. Sometimes he will reach for a word and not be able to find it, or he’ll start a sentence in Hindi and then realise he is speaking English by the time he reaches the end of it.

  Some of his faculties seem okay, but then there are whole years he cannot recall. His childhood, for instance, seems entirely lost.

  ‘Nothing?’ She urges. ‘Try and think back. You must remember something?’

  ‘I can remember . . . there’s a smell.’ A smile creeps across his broken face, and he looks, finally, peaceful. ‘Cake. I can remember cake.’

  Sasha thinks his memories will come back with time, but he doesn’t want them to. He likes the past like this, as clean and full of promise as the future.

  There was a time, in the depths of her depression, when she’d thought that there was nothing science couldn’t answer, even when that answer was dismal. She’d learned, for instance, to blame the entropy that ate at her on the psychological process of habituation – the way the brain grew accustomed to familiar things – so that every time she ate her favourite meal, watched a sunset from their brownstone’s balcony, made love, the cognitive pathways became a little more worn, the ruts a little deeper, and so they produced less joy.

  Each night Connor watches the sun set from the window cage in Bandra, and he cranes his neck to catch the last gleaming of the light as it sets over the mangroves.

  She’s glad he is happier. She says an old friend once told her that suffering is how we become better people, although she isn’t sure if she believes that anymore.

  ‘I do like you this way though,’ she tells Connor. ‘You’re gentler. Nicer.’

  To her, and also to Velli. At a market stall on Fashion Street near Churchgate, Connor notices the girl admiring a backpack – a H
ello Kitty monstrosity with fold-out wheels that turn the bag into a little scooter. Connor asks if she wants it, and when, after a long, shy pause, Velli nods, he haggles viciously with the stall owner until he relents and gives them the real price.

  They see as much of Mumbai as they can, aware they will never come back again – take endless taxi rides to the north and to the southern reaches. Inching through the traffic on highways that wend through the sky, crowded by the divine Jenga game of the Mumbai skyline – ancient minarets, tenement housing blocks collapsing on their foundations and leaning on their neighbours like long-married couples. Starbucks, neon signs, emaciated cows threading their way moodily through traffic. The whole city a wonderful fever dream.

  They don’t sleep the night before they leave. Sasha sits with Connor in the window cage, their legs dangling over the void. She is prepared to stretch out alongside him to catch the last of the sun slipping between the buildings, but the season has shifted, the world has moved on, and on their last night in Mumbai the sun sinks framed perfectly in their little window of sky.

  The gloom gathers, sinks into the gold on the horizon, and she realises that habituation is a choice. This sunset is entirely new, she has never seen it before and never will again – the world spins ever forward, and her with it, every moment lost to the ocean of the moments gone before, and so on and so forth – and so, so precious.

  Connor stays up chain-smoking in the window until first light starts to break over the city. He rubs his thumb appreciatively over the rough blue canvas covering his passport, the coat of arms and the Southern Cross, the emu and the kangaroo holding up the shield on either side. He tells Sasha that those animals were chosen for the crest because they couldn’t walk backwards, which, when you think about it, is deeply misguided. What could actually go backwards? Who ever had any choice but to hurtle ever-faster towards the inevitable?

  Sasha worries about the passport’s ID page. Connor’s was made earlier, but Velli’s – her new identity lifted from somewhere in the vastness of this country – is necessarily rushed. It isn’t perfect, she doubts they will get far, but they will work it out once they are in Bali.