Baumgartner's Bombay

by Anita Desai

  It was yet another still, stifling day, grey and khaki, in an endless succession that threatened never to stop, but to go on till every man in the camp had grown old, died, and turned to dust in his grave, when a man suddenly ran screaming through the camp. ‘Hitler ist tot! He is dead! He is dead!’ Shocked by the suddenness, the loudness of the announcement, the men sat up in their bunks to stare at him. He had come to a standstill, stood trembling. ‘It’s true,’ he muttered, ‘the war is over. You can hear it on the radio.’

  There was an odd silence. Baumgartner, and the other Jews, were tense, watching the effect of the announcement upon those who ruled the camp. They watched the way the whole machinery of the camp seemed to jar and stall. All the ordinary sounds – the hum that rose every now and then to an uproar and then wound down to a hum again – had stopped. The men could hear themselves breathing, sweating even. The siren had to be blown, and whistles and bells, to get them moving again, and humming. They began to go through the ordinary motions of the ordinary day again – lining up with their mess plates, eating, washing, sweeping, fetching water, but everyone’s movements had become desultory, half-hearted, their voices dropped to an unnatural murmur. ‘When will they open the gates and let us out?’ one murmured to another, to be instantly answered, ‘Don’t be such a fool, Peter. After the last war, it took two years before they closed the POW camps. They have to decide what to do with us.’ The young man Peter became agitated, even aggressive. He could be seen thrashing his arms as he shouted, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ They had to hold him and calm him. When he was silenced, his friends led him off. Baumgartner watched. The bugles blew. They were marched on to the parade-ground. Although the British flag flew, the commandant seemed no more in command than he had been before. He spent a long time gazing vaguely into the distance as if waiting for the mountains to materialise out of the dust haze. Finally, he ordered them into the barracks. The men nudged each other as they shuffled away: ‘He doesn’t know what to do himself.’

  They sat about in the barracks. No one seemed to want to play cards. Towards evening, some roused themselves and said, ‘The Kulturabteilung has arranged a concert tonight. Shall we go?’ The others seemed irritated by the reminder. Some opined it could not possibly be held, immediately others replied that it had to be held. Bach must be played, Beethoven must be played – for Germany’s sake, for Germany’s honour. The members of the orchestra seemed undecided whether to play or not to play, and listened with helpless expressions while the men argued. Eventually they took up their instruments and shuffled towards the hall, somewhat guiltily. Then the men followed, still arguing, but somehow needing each other’s company, wanting some kind of gathering. They sprawled on the chairs that were lined up before the stage, but the curtain would not rise. Eventually some began to drum their heels. Others shouted.

  What happened next seemed to Baumgartner, who stood at the back, by the door, like a scene in a play – as if actors had rehearsed their parts and were now playing them on the stage. The orchestra appeared, sidling out from behind the curtain, clutching their instruments. But they did not play, nor did they make a speech. Instead, standing there before the grey rag of the curtain, in their crumpled, faded, many years old clothes, they held their instruments and studied their shoes. Then one of them drew his feet together, straightened his back, raised his face, closed his eyes and began to sing, in a voice strained by emotion, the song of graves and funerals, of death on battlefields, of endings and defeats:

  ‘Ich hat’ ein Kamerad,

  Einen besseren find’st du nicht . . .’

  The men in the audience gave a collective shiver. Baumgartner saw some rise to their feet as if an anthem were being played. One by one they opened their mouths to join in:

  ‘Die Trommel schlug zum Seite,

  Er ging an meiner Seite

  In gleichem Schritt und Tritt,

  In gleichem Schritt und Tritt.’

  Baumgartner stood, under the weight of their defeat, burdened by their defeat, finding it gross, grotesque, suffocating. He wanted to shout ‘Stop!’ He wanted to tell them it was their defeat, not his, that their country might be destroyed but this meant a victory, terribly late, far too late, but at last the victory. Of course he said nothing, he stood helplessly, only aware how crushed and wrecked and wretched a representative he was of victory. Couldn’t even victory appear in colours other than that of defeat? No. Defeat was heaped on him, whether he deserved it or not.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BAUMGARTNER WOKE IN a panic, feeling an iron weight press upon his solar plexus, press and press till it threatened to crack under pressure, and his heart hammered to get out. He struggled and heaved, fought to get out from under it, hitting out with his arms.

  Lotte muttered in angry protest. It had been her weight against him, leaning heavily, moist with perspiration.

  Remorsefully, Baumgartner rubbed her rubbery red arms, then struggled out of bed, groaning, ‘And no Mittagessen, no lunch, even have we had. Lotte, won’t you make some Mittagessen now?’

  She muttered something inaudible, and threw her head about on the pillow. Baumgartner sighed, straightened his clothes and stumbled towards the table. Still half-blind with sleep, he hunted in bread-bins and biscuit tins. ‘No chocolate?’ he whined. ‘No chocolate even, Lotte?’

  She suddenly jerked herself upright. Her eyes were red and her hair stood on end. She glowered in his direction, but without recognition. ‘Chocolate – chocolate –’ she chewed the words with her gums, having lost her dentures in the pillow. ‘You pig you, go out and eat chocolate. Don’t come to me saying chocolate – chocolate – this time of day – this time of night – oh – aah!’ she cried out as though an unseen weight had descended on her too, all at once, and collapsed on to the bed and slept on, suddenly immobile, noisily drawing air up her nose like a chimney.

  Baumgartner removed his fingers from her tins and bottles, guiltily. ‘Then I must go home and eat – so hungry, Lotte,’ he complained, and fastened his buttons, buckles, smoothed his hair. Oh, he felt awful, awful. To sleep like this, soaked with gin, on a hot afternoon in Bombay – oh, it was stupid, stupid. He stumbled towards the door, and fumbled amongst the bolts and chains, rattled them helplessly, frightenedly, in a panic, wanting to get out.

  The staircase was pleasantly shaded, silent, even if thick with cooking smells, but when he reached the door at the bottom on the stairs, the fresh air and the heat struck at him like twin knives. It was cruel, but he had to go, he had to walk back to his flat, get some food, he had to eat. And feed his cats. Thinking of them prowling around and crying with hunger, he struck the side of his head and spat, ‘Ech!’

  Ramu, seated on a chair at his door, asleep, opened one eye to see the old man stumble away, talking to himself. Before going back to sleep, he gave a wink, and a sarcastic, ‘Hah – that memsahib – and the sahib – so old – still – hmp!’

  Half an hour later Baumgartner staggered into the Café de Paris, a great sigh surging out of his lungs as he dropped into the nearest chair. Unlike the street outside, strident with afternoon light, the café was thick with shadows, green quiet shadows that seemed to be generated by the blaze and glare outside. The clockwise fans revolved at top speed, keeping flies at a distance. Thankfully, Baumgartner eased his feet out of his shoes. The summer heat always caused his feet to swell and of course to sweat – the odour would have made him flinch if it were not so familiar. He stretched his arms out and laid his palms flat on the cool marble top of the table, sighing with gratitude. As he did so, his eye fell upon a similar figure at the shadowy far end of the café.

  It was the fair-haired hippy: he had not left. Moved, yes – he was no longer slumped across the table but sat with his back rigid against the wall, nursing one arm in the other, his chin lowered on to his chest. It was too dark to make out the expression on his face which was in any case obscured by the fall of his bleached hair.

  Baumgartner quailed, and looked away. He did not wan
t to have anything to do with this man, too blonde and too young to be of any interest to him. He twisted his head round to the counter, saw one of the waiters standing there, cursorily wiping a trayful of cutlery, and beckoned him. ‘What is today’s special?’ he asked and when he was told, ordered, ‘One plate, pliss, very quick. And water, pliss.’ He felt dehydrated as well as starved. Such an afternoon. That Lotte. How did she live so? He shook his head and made grumbling, reproving sounds to himself. Feeling censorious, he drummed his fingertips on the table-top, waiting for the food to come. When it did, the waiter apologised that it was the last plateful, lunchtime was actually over and they had not started with dinner yet. Baumgartner, with his mouth full, made a reassuring gesture with his hand, wanting to be left alone to eat whatever there was.

  While he ate, finding a great solace and comfort in the mouthfuls of rice and lentils and potatoes, Farrokh came out of his room at the back, still adjusting his pyjama strings and still unshaven. He did not really shave or dress till the evening. He stood at the counter, surveying his café with the look of a ruler, a despot, a very displeased one.

  Coming over to Baumgartner’s table with a surprisingly purposeful stride, he interrupted Baumgartner’s reverie by asking, ‘Mr Bommgarter, I can have word with you?’

  Baumgartner’s face fell – was he going to say the café would no longer supply scraps for Baumgartner’s cats? Would Baumgartner have to look elsewhere for largesse, and establish working relations with a new set of benefactors so as to keep his growing family fed and contented? This was a constantly renewed fear. Putting down his spoon, he sat up meekly to hear.

  But Farrokh, sitting down with his legs wide apart, and placing his elbows heavily on the table, lowered his face and brought it forward till it almost touched Baumgartner’s nose. At that range, every hair protruding from his nostrils, and every bristle on his jowls, was not only visible but magnified. ‘Mr Baumgartner, what can I do? Please tell me – there is man from your country –’

  Baumgartner drew back as if struck, wiping a bit of spittle from his cheek.

  ‘That is only reason why I fed him,’ Farrokh insisted. ‘I know you, I know your country must be good country, so I gave food to the boy. Then he no pay. No pay, no money, he say, just like that –’ Farrokh pulled at his pyjamas to demonstrate the boy’s insulting action. ‘And he eat so much – he finish my kofta curry. Again and again he tell waiter, “Bring me kofta – more kofta –” Finished kofta. That is why none left for you, and you must eat potato.’ He touched Baumgartner’s arm in the soft, intimate way he had with his great hairy hands. ‘And then – no money; so when I see policeman going down the street, I bring him in. I tell him everything, but policeman just look at the boy and laugh and go away, say I don’t want to touch these druggies, these junkies, they are dirty men. What I to do? So I go back, catch hold of this boy and push him out. But what happen? He fall down. Just like that – in front of my café. Fall down, like dead dog.’ His voice rose in indignation, like a woman’s. ‘People stop, stare. No one stop and stare if one of your own beggars drop dead in street. No, just step over him like he is a stone, or a dog turd and go away quickly. But when they see a white man with golden hair lying in the street, everyone stop, everyone cry, “Hai, hai, – poor boy, call doctor, call ambulance. What has happen, Farrokh-bhai?” And they all look at me as if I knock him down, as if I hurt him. I hurt him? I not even hurt my own boys when they fail exam, come asking for money. All kind bad things they do in school, out of school, but I don’t beat them. I don’t beat these worthless waiters who take my money and eat my food, then do no work. Why I beat this foreign boy then? I want to go to gaol? People must know this. You know this, Mr Bommgarter?’

  Baumgartner nodded dutifully, and Farrokh felt he could go on.

  ‘So I just go back to café, say nothing, and what these damn fool people of Colaba do? They pick up that boy,’ Farrokh roared, his voice expanding and lifting so that it struck the ceiling and bounced back, ‘they PICK UP that boy and BRING HIM BACK HERE!’ He gestured violently at the figure in the corner. Although it nodded, it was clear the boy was too drugged to have heard, perhaps asleep in that rigidly upright position. ‘Here he is again,’ Farrokh cried in despair, ‘and now what I do?’

  Baumgartner looked away from the boy, from Farrokh, from his own hands bunched on the table. He was not interested in the boy, he was not responsible for him, why did Farrokh imagine he was? All he wanted to do was scrape up the last of the dal and rice on his plate and then collect the bag of scraps and go home to feed his cats. This he could not do in Farrokh’s café unless he first satisfied Farrokh. ‘Perhaps ask him where he lives, Mr Farrokh?’ he suggested sadly.

  Farrokh gripped the two edges of the table as if he wanted to break it in two. ‘I ask already,’ he bellowed. ‘I ask and I ASK. But no reply. What I can do? Mr Bommgarter, pliss, go speak to him in his language – ask him what he want? Why he sit in the Café de Paris when he have no money for food, for tea? Why he not go? When he get up and go? Please spick, Mr Bommgarter, and tell him GO.’

  Baumgartner looked desperately for some way to refuse. He had not the slightest wish to involve himself with the fair young man who might not be from his country and, if he was, very likely an Aryan who would not want to take any help from him. How to explain this to the good Farrokh? He sat looking helplessly at the oddly tortured position of the young man, crammed into a corner of the green-painted walls of the Café de Paris, and told himself, ‘Perhaps he is Scandinavian – looks like a Swede – a Viking,’ and very reluctantly raised himself from his chair and walked down the length of the empty café, watched by the determined Farrokh and an interested waiter at the counter.

  At the corner table, Baumgartner came to a standstill, trying to think of something to say. Clearing his throat brought no response. Finally he bent and placed his hands on the table, and said softly, ‘Is anything wrong? Can I help?’

  He spoke unconsciously, without forethought, in German.

  The boy opened his eyes. They were inflamed and unfocused. He closed them again. Baumgartner added in English, ‘If you are ill, I can call a doctor. You need help?’

  Without opening his eyes, the boy parted his lips sufficiently to snarl, ‘Get out. Raus.’

  Baumgartner instantly retreated. It was as he feared – the boy was German, a fair Aryan German, and wanted nothing to do with him. Well, that was that, then. With a clear conscience, he returned to Farrokh with a light step, shrugged his shoulders and explained, ‘He say no, no help wanted.’

  Farrokh frowned, his dark hairline, dark eyebrows, dark moustache all coming together in a ferocious black scowl. ‘Then why he not get up and go?’ he spat out, fiercely. ‘What he sitting here for? Tell him get out.’

  ‘He won’t listen, Mr Farrokh,’ Baumgartner pleaded, with a look at the remains of curry and rice on his plate, now congealed and uneatable. The sight of the food reminded him that he had to collect the bag of scraps for his cats. Perhaps it was necessary to make another effort for Farrokh before he could ask for it and leave. ‘You want that I push him out for you?’

  ‘Yes, I want,’ Farrokh agreed fervently. ‘My evening customers coming in, I don’t want foreign junkie lying in corner. Not in my café. This family café. What they think? You think I have no standards?’ He arrived at this impressive word by sheer pressure of rage and despair. Himself impressed by it, he continued, ‘Other junkies will follow. This will become drug den. Not high-class two-star Irani restaurant for good families.’ He was raving now, carried away by his highly coloured version of things to come.

  Baumgartner began to feel aggrieved. Why was he being made responsible for Farrokh’s status, for the Café de Paris’s status? He came here only for the leftovers. Getting annoyed, he said shortly, ‘Then let us go together and talk to him.’

  The two approached the table in the corner together – one warily, the other threateningly – and Farrokh’s heavy tread made the boy turn
his head and look at them with a wan, uncaring air. ‘I have said already,’ he said in an unnaturally high-pitched quaver, ‘I cannot pay bills. I am ill. I want only to sit here.’ His teeth showed between his lips, like an animal’s, in warning.

  ‘No, no sit here if you are ill,’ Farrokh began to roar, lifting his arms in the air. ‘Hospital for ill people, not café.’

  ‘Hospital is not for me,’ the boy replied with something of a laugh that bared more of his teeth. Then he closed his eyes and leant his head against the wall.

  Baumgartner found his concern aroused in spite of himself. The boy was not so different from a sick cat, he told himself in order to overcome the revulsion he felt from contact with this fair-haired boy that was instinctive and uncontrollable. To think of Nazi Germany now, after all these years, in faraway Bombay, it was absurd after all. Swallowing that revulsion, he asked, ‘Shall I bring the doctor here?’

  The boy seemed to be thinking it over and Farrokh stood and seethed. The café was quite silent, the street noises kept at bay by its thick shadows. Then the boy rolled his head from side to side in stubborn dissent. It clearly cost him a great deal to make that dissent.

  ‘You need some medicine I can get for you?’ Baumgartner tried again. He found himself pronouncing ‘medicine’ in the German way, and was irritated.

  The boy opened his mouth, then chewed his lip, without any sound. His face became gradually clenched in a grimace, Baumgartner could not tell whether in a spasm of pain or at their enforced presence.

  ‘You have a place I can take you to?’ he ventured, remembering a charitable clinic where he had sometimes taken families of kittens he could not keep or those cats that needed surgery. Perhaps there was one for such strays as this boy here.