by Aashish Kaul
Soon you met him again, then again and again. One day in the park, reclining on the grass, he spoke about his meeting with an old man who sat cross-legged, pulling butterflies out of his mouth one after the other. He did have, he mused, something Nabokovian in him. Hearing this your lips spread into a downward curve, a slight foreboding filling your chest, but he was calm like he had narrated a plain fact for anyone to see. His wandering gaze had come to rest on the stone mausoleums, covered in the melancholy of a lost era. Countless pigeons ruptured it here and there with the songliness of their short circular flights. Now he looked at you and the expression in your eyes made him sigh. Thereupon swiftly forgetting the matter he smiled. In no time the air was abuzz with excitement as a group of children came running towards the two of you, and in tow came a huge pink-and-blue balloon, the first of the rally, sailing over the trees.
Having asked after his writing many a time, you at last succeeded and he showed you one of his poems. He said it was about a girl in a blue mackintosh running away from a shadow in pursuit, about the impressive curve of her dress within, bunched at the waist, and the warm wet night without. You read it later, once, twice, and then once more, failing to make much sense of it. For unless he had meant it as a joke, the poem he spoke about existed only in some shadowy corner of his mind or was completely concealed by the words it was draped with. You didn’t tell him so, and he didn’t seem particularly eager to hear your opinion of it.
Rolling through the endless fields of freedom, how we yearn for bondage. Something to stop the water like flow, something to bind and contain us: a piece of land providing the warmth of repetition, a vista that fills us with longing each time, the obsessive lure of possessions, cul-de-sacs of desire, the sanctum of art. Anything will do, nearly anything to fill this dizzying emptiness of the heart, to weigh it down.
With what startling simplicity he had entered your life, bringing to it, all of a sudden, the sizzling swing of jazz, which could only go one way: to the concluding crash of the cymbal. Dtisssshhhhh…Love came between you, a love fluid and resilient like water, love that still flows between you, never mind the expanding space and the contracting time. These are but small matters…
Winter had silently sneaked in. Your step was brisk as you walked to his quarters on that never-to-be-forgotten December evening. The hunter had come up in the sky, hands and feet in position, ready to strike yet frozen for eternity in the glare of some unhappy god. Your thoughts moved round him, circled that life which was fabulous just as it was ordinary. Having not seen him in three days, you were eager to reach your destination. How long it seemed from the night he had lain in bed with you discussing his unwritten book on chess, ripe in the head, ready to jump out. The talk about Duchamp, Miguel de Unamuno, and the ancient Hindu myths was still with you. In what childlike frenzy he had spoken; and yet behind all the glitter of ideas, his mind had been for long choking.
Entering through the side gate of the lawn, you saw the glow from the windows, and your heart leapt from its place as if it was the first time. Bending your knees you’d crouch on the ground to observe him a moment. Then, maybe you’d tap on the glass with your foot to announce your arrival…But where was he? You waited. No sign of him, no movement…Oh, how stupid of you to not see it right away! A part of his arm limply hung from the sofa. Quickly descending the steps, you were just about to press the bell when you saw that the door was ajar. Soundlessly you entered and bolted the door behind you. Moving near him, a vague suspicion rising with every step, your sight fell on the table littered with a half-empty bottle of Jameson, four or five books, a writing pad, and a chessboard. He lay sprawled on the sofa, whispering in his sleep. You could see his breath for a cold draught had filled the room. A better part of the blanket had slipped from his legs to the ground, putting a shiver in his mumbling. Puffing out your cheeks, you bent towards him to hear better. See…Dick seeks…not…It is…madly see…him … At first it made no sense, but then you saw among the books on the table, Moby-Dick, and the vision was astonishing in its clarity, making you fear for him (…brr…the water’s cold…far…far…) for he was chasing the phantom of his own ruin, not in the balmy tropics but in the ice-worlds of the pole (perhaps because he was cold). You came nearer still and covered his trembling lips with your own, and he gladly surrendered to their warmth. Soon his arms had slipped past your waist through the open coat and his hand was rubbing your hip. You raised your head a little and, magnetically, his head too moved upwards. Unable to find what he was searching with his lips, he opened his eyes. For a few moments he was still, his vacant gaze resting on the tiny silver elephant dangling in the shadow of your chin. Then, without a word, he rose to his feet and, lifting you from the waist, your legs clasped around him, carried you over to the bed. There, with your head hanging from the edge and your thighs wrapped tight around his midriff, his flesh quickly came to life, warm and responsive to your every move, every caress, anticipating your thoughts and doing their bidding. Tears dropped to your eyes and, through the open window, you saw the hunter stir in the starry forest of the night sky.
Presently you were roused from your sleep by the chill of the wind on your back, waking up on top of him. You rolled down to his side, pulling over the blanket at once. He didn’t move, like he was in a deep sleep, though in truth he was wide-awake and murmuring about the horses.
Phantom Days
in this world, beauty is so common
Jorge Luis Borges
Again I wake up with the sound of drums in my ears, the mattress hard under me. I bury my face in the crook of my arm that is on the pillow, while with the other hand I search for the watch. The drums seem nearer now; their beats ruffle the hair on the back of my head and slide down into my ears, but sleep has not left me entirely and it is with difficulty that I lift my head to check the time. It is not yet eight and I have already twice repeated these movements in the last twenty minutes, which could well be three hours. Then all at once the beating of drums ceases. The company has concluded its morning march. A bugle is heard three times. After that all is silent, though I now become aware of another sound, that of the old fan rotating above. Fighting the urge to fall back to sleep I turn around and rub my eye with a finger. I can think of nothing as I follow the movements of the fan through the mosquito net that closes on me from all sides – like a room within a room. In my sleep I recall feeling the warmth of a body. But here I lie alone, ignoring the discomfort of a full bladder. I see the road that passes through the forest, its trees yellowish-brown skeletons, their branches bare and rising willy-nilly towards a sky which is white with heat; the earth as far as you can look is covered with dead leaves. It is a landscape at the end of time.
At last I rise from the bed and go over to the bathroom. The floor tiles are dirty with shoe marks. I spot a lizard trying to escape through a hole in the roof. Back in the room, I greedily gulp down all the water in the bottle on the table. Next to it is a flask from which I pour coffee in one of the two cups in the tray – a sweet milky syrup that I can’t bear to finish. Through the window comes a breeze that is cool, but outside the meadows are dry and dusty, and would resemble a desert were it not for the pines that break the monotony here and there – of a green that makes them look like silhouettes. It has not rained in two years. I try to think of my last visit, but the view is so desolate that no memories come to mind. Instead a sudden dizziness rises to my head.
The door is not bolted. I step into the gallery (that circumscribes this L-shaped, single-storey building), and instinctively look around for monkeys. There are two kinds of them in this place. Those with a silver fur and black faces are quite well-behaved, my friend often feeds them chickpeas from his hand. The other ones are pink-bottomed rogues, not afraid to bite or claw on the flimsiest of pretexts. For some reason neither is present today. Wind that rises now and then curls the branches of the trees in the yard, and pushes the leaves on the ground first to one side and then to the other, forming and eroding strang
e continents. I sit down on the steps at the edge of the gallery, my arms on my knees. The sun is getting stronger and warms my shins that ache slightly from all the walking. It will be another hot day even though this town of all but ten thousand is a hill resort in the middle of the country, for these hills are old and low, content to merely watch over the forests stretching in all directions, never rising to mighty heights.
Sounds on the tiled roof make me stand. A mischievous one jumps from the edge of the roof on to the iron gate and in two leaps is already on the other side of the mud path where it quickly climbs up a mango tree. A stone swishes past me and hits the trunk. My friend appears from the other end of the yard, swinging, to my surprise, a slingshot on a finger. He is back from his morning run; all these days he has been regular about it. Running helps him keep his asthma in control, he says, yet at home he can do so only on weekends, morning being the only time when he reads his court briefs. When only a few steps away, he tosses the slingshot at me. I manage to catch it with one hand and, for a moment just as he is entering the room, stare at the back of his t-shirt which is damp with sweat. In the past week we have become accustomed to the silence of this place and, though we talk for hours sometimes, we have learnt to do without courtesies.
A slingshot. I do not know how to use it. Like all else it requires a certain skill in handling, and I am not particularly good at cultivating skills. In school, we often rolled bits of paper into pellets and hit each other using a rubber band stretched between the thumb and the index finger as a slingshot. Even at that I fared poorly. However, this is a more sophisticated instrument. I observe it closely – the fork is a perfect Y made of solid wood and the sling is of soft leather, two blue rubber tubes making the connexion – but then I get bored and decide to practice my aim. Picking up a few pebbles, I shoot them in air. At first the stones travel only a short distance, but with the seventh or eighth one I manage to clear the yard and lose it in the branches of a tree where it releases a dry crackle. I see a monkey watch me from behind the iron gate, perhaps the same one which had earlier climbed the tree. I play at taking aim but even before I can steady the pebble it has bounded off.
The caretaker arrives with our breakfast. It consists of toasts and eggs and tea brewed with ginger flakes in it. He is a small fellow with a childlike smile that never leaves his face and puts a twinkle in his eyes, his short hair covers his head like a mat. I ask him to bring a pitcher of cold water.
Inside, my friend has pulled up the mosquito net from his part of the bed and is sitting cross-legged smearing butter on his toast. I sit there sipping the tea that leaves a delicious gingery sting on the palate, and ask him if he was able to make the call. No, he tells me, the kiosk hadn’t yet opened for the day. The caretaker enters carrying the pitcher of water, asks what he should prepare for lunch. My friend asks him to repeat the menu of the day before – curry, yellow lentils, and rice, but I feel little appetite for lunch.
After breakfast, my friend picks up the slingshot that is lying on the table and goes out into the yard to shoot stones. I lie down in bed and stare at the teak wood ceiling painted a deep brown. Sleep hovers in the room, but I have learnt a few tricks to avoid it, one of them being not to read while lying down. So instead I think of the past.
My friend comes in, says it will rain, pointing, beyond the roof, at the cliff which is partly in shadow. Indeed clouds have flown over the sun and the wind has freshened. But they look nothing like rain clouds to me. All the same it is good weather to be in the open. So we carry a chair each from the room and put them under the tree that has a cement platform round its trunk.
The wind strokes me in a million places, enfolds me. The chair next to me is empty; the book he has been reading is lying upside down on it. He is up on the platform, walking in half circles round the tree. The way he walks – slight tilt of the head, a deliberate swing in the arms, measured step – I know he has become excited with some idea. He looks at me and then looks away, saying nothing. He is taking his time.
‘In times like these, those who don’t take a stand – politically, I mean – must be shot,’ he blurts out at last and pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. I say nothing. Perhaps he, too, does not expect a response, for he is walking on the platform, much in the same way as before, without looking at me. Is he talking to himself? All the same this is an opportunity to broach a subject I have avoided previously. So I say: ‘A bit harsh, no?’
‘Oh, you find it harsh? Really?’ I have misjudged him. He wants the conversation as much as I do, a tiring affair, but little can now be done about it. ‘On the other side of these forests,’ he continues, ‘why, at their very centre, at various places along the river, people are suffering. Countless homes flooded, countless displaced. Why? Because we want only wastelands! And what is better, we’re all for progress. Some progress this! Now ask yourself who pays the price for this progress? Not you and me, for sure. Not yet. Genuine people’s movements to save their homes, to protect themselves are crushed or ridiculed as propaganda. Big money changes hands. Voices are stifled, and there are many ways to do that. And amid all this we happily go about our business. And what business! The practice of law! Something we don’t give a damn about. Thankfully, I may be only accused of this.’ He has fallen silent, no, he is anticipating my question and preparing a response. Already the talk is turning into a game. A mere battle of wits. Will it ever rise above that?
‘And what else is to be my blame?’ I humour him.
‘You’re a writer, too, and you care about that.’ Finally he is looking at me. ‘Yet all you want to write about is Proust and Mendelssohn, Paris and chess. Books plotted like games. Stories with musical variations. Esoteric, surely. Imaginative and timeless and dead.’
‘That and more,’ I reply. ‘Melancholy, for instance.’ I cannot think of much else. He has summarized it well.
‘Yes, what about it?’ he asks.
‘Nothing at all, now that I think. But then people write for several reasons. For instance, you may find language a living thing, throbbing with life. You may like fondling it, squeezing it even. That may become your only concern. Or you may busy yourself in forming a world superior to this one, even as it borrows, here and there, a gesture, a glance, a mote of dust, the colour of sky – a world that hasn’t vanished the next moment because the growing randomness has thrown everything into disarray.’
‘Yes, yes, metaphors, exercises in style. Imagination surmounting reality. Isn’t that what you say? But I tell you, that rarefied air you breathe rises from this very ground. For what, after all, makes a thing imaginary or real? I’ve seen children displaced from their homes, walking in the dark, frail and hungry and fearful – there’s nothing real in their faces.’
‘We reach the absurd through different ways,’ I say resignedly.
At this he nods. He understands what I mean. We are silent now. A cow is grazing on tufts of wild grass on the other side of the hedge, a bell tinkling with each movement of its head. The clouds have flown away leaving a streak of white in the sky. The heat is rising. My friend asks me if we should return to the room.
Inside, I quickly slip through the mosquito net and lie down on my back, my arms crossed under my head. My friend not without some difficulty has taken his favourite place on the mantlepiece, the area behind his legs a garish pink in colour, the hearth clean and awaiting winter. He has put on weight. To me, though, he often says that I remain thin as a snake. Comfortably settled, he resumes the talk from his vantage point: ‘All those movements in art that emerged from the war – be it Dadaism, Surrealism or the Nouveaux Réalistes – were a protest against something, no? Against the bourgeois sensibilities and imperialist interests that had made art opaque and insensitive to the suffering of people. You take that essence out of those movements – what in fact ultimately happened – and all you’re left with is chaos.’
The thought comes to me that his language is becoming all too familiar.
‘Y
es, chaos,’ I murmur. ‘The curse of expecting art to do things it isn’t meant to do. Today, it’s become the province of mostly those who should be the farthest from it.’
‘What can it not do?’
‘For instance, poems written and recited in binary codes. At a reading to which I persuaded myself to go out of sheer boredom. Now how does that express the suffering of people?’
‘That is shit. It expresses nothing.’
‘And how does a landscape express this suffering?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So should we do away with landscapes altogether?’
‘You cunning bastard.’
‘Maybe with any luck,’ I say, ‘we may have what you call a “civilized society” in another thousand years. Let’s assume there’ll be little or no suffering of the kind you speak. Yet other forms of suffering will survive. I’m simply doing my bit to keep that part alive. Good luck to others who’re doing the rest.’
‘You cunning bastard.’ Laughter is forming in his throat. It rises and rises until it issues forth from his lips and spreads across the room and escapes through the chimney. I am smiling too. All is square between us once more.
‘Tell me about the book you were speaking of the other day. That novel by Bioy Casares,’ he says suddenly. I ask him if he would rather not read it himself. If I reveal the ingenious plot what will remain! ‘No, go ahead. Who knows when I’ll get a chance.’
He is still perched on the mantle when I finish. He releases a low whistle. It has taken me little over four minutes to tell the story. He admits he has never heard something like it. ‘Now, there you’ve a book that’ll survive a thousand years,’ he says at last, whether in earnest or not, I cannot tell. A knock, and the caretaker enters, which can only mean that lunch is ready. It is only quarter past noon. This place is full of time, it never seems to run out. How will I learn again to live in a city where time is as nimble as a cat.
