The Last Taxi Ride

by A. X. Ahmad

  Ranjit settles into the armchair, feeling the coarse horsehair within it.

  “I still can’t believe it’s you. What the hell happened, back at the Academy? Did you leave … because of that officer’s wife?”

  “Oh, she was just the last straw. I had enough of the goddamn military, anyway … but for God’s sake, let’s have a drink first.”

  He hands Ranjit a glass of Scotch, the crystal tumbler hand cut and heavy.

  In a flash of intuition, Ranjit realizes that all this—the tumblers, the carved bed, and the leather armchair—belong to long-dead inhabitants, and that Mohan has pilfered them from the storage area.

  Mohan raises his glass. “To long-lost friends.”

  “I’ll drink to that. To long-lost friends.”

  They clink glasses and swallow deeply, the alcohol burning as it goes down. Then Mohan pours them another one.

  Ranjit settles back into the armchair. “So what happened? I’m waiting.”

  “Captain, the interregimental boxing match. You remember it?”

  “Of course.” Ranjit smiles. “We trained together. Those early morning runs. Sparring together. That right cross I taught you, you got pretty good at it.”

  “Exactly. I was a good boxer. Fast, accurate.” Mohan’s handsome face becomes sullen. “You didn’t see me in action at the finals, you were on guard duty that night. I fought some guy from a Gurkha regiment. In the second round, I cut the guy above his eye—right cross, just like you taught me—and blood was pouring down his face, he was half blind, but the judges wouldn’t stop the fight. Later on, I found out that two of them were from this guy’s regiment, they wanted to punish him.”

  He sips his drink and smiles grimly. “So I was hitting this guy, he was covered in blood, he couldn’t see a damn thing, and I couldn’t take it any more. I just stopped. And do you know what the fucking judges did? They voided the fight. Told me that I was a disgrace, that I should have knocked him out.” His eyes cloud over with the memory. “That night I thought to myself, I can’t do this, how the hell am I going to kill people in battle? So the next night … I just went over the wire. I left town and kept on moving…”

  * * *

  The bottle empties as Mohan talks for the next half hour, pausing now and then to stroke his thin mustache.

  He tells Ranjit about life after leaving the Military Academy: a few years of working as a waiter in Mumbai, and then a lucky break: he found a job as a steward on a merchant marine ship, and spent over a decade shuttling between Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta, and Tokyo.

  After he worked his way up to bursar he took his first voyage across the Pacific, to Florida, and there he heard that an American cruise line was looking for stewards; tall, well-groomed, and personable, he fit their profile and was hired.

  The cruise line catered to an older, wealthy American clientele, and there Mohan became aware of the widows, still blond and trim in their sixties, rich with pensions and life insurance money, and the way they looked at him as he passed by. Of course, he always had girlfriends in port—young shopgirls and nannies—but now he began to aspire to something better. On one cruise he met a large-hearted woman in her late fifties, with a quick laugh and a burning wish to relive her youth. She warmed quickly to Mohan’s attention, and when the ship returned to Florida, she invited him back to New York, and he eagerly accepted. But after three months in her Upper East Side apartment he grew tired of her possessiveness, and his wandering eye noticed the firm bosom and flashing eyes of Maria, the cleaning woman. When the older woman discovered them fooling around in the stairwell, she became hysterical and Mohan found himself standing on the sidewalk with no papers, his seaman’s duffel and eighty dollars in his pocket.

  “So there I was, Captain.” Mohan pours his third drink of the evening. “In this city, broke. I couldn’t move in with Maria—she lived with her three brothers in Washington Heights—but luckily I had the phone number of a distant cousin. He let me sleep in his living room for a few months.

  “Anyway, Maria was still cleaning houses, so I accompanied her. Can you imagine, me, scrubbing toilets? One day, we had a job here, at the Dakota, and it was very hot, so I took off my shirt, and when the lady of the house came back, I kept it off. There was chemistry between us, believe me, and biology too.

  “To cut a long story short, Captain, she and I got along very well. So good-bye, Maria. Luckily one of the older doormen had just died, so this lady got me a job here, and this apartment. I’ve been here ever since. The lady and I have an arrangement, she calls me whenever she … needs me. Yes, it’s all worked out very well.”

  Mohan leans back against the wall and strokes his mustache again. “Not bad, eh, Captain, for a dropout from the Academy? A regular squeeze and a place on Central Park West?”

  Ranjit thinks about his soul-bruising encounter with the woman from his cab, but quickly buries the memory; Mohan seems to be comfortable with the idea of mutual use.

  “Yes, of course. You’ve done well.”

  “And you, Captain? Why did you leave the army? I thought you would be a lifer, for sure.”

  Ranjit takes another hit of Scotch. His stomach is growling with hunger, but he needs the alcohol to get his words out.

  “You didn’t read about my court-martial? It was in all the papers.”

  “Court-martial? No, I was at sea. What could you have possibly done?”

  “I was stationed up on the Siachen Glacier. Leading missions into Pakistani territory.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes sense … you were always a good climber. But the Siachen … I heard it was a bloodbath up there. Frostbite, altitude sickness, enemy fire. What the hell happened, Captain?”

  “I made a mistake, a bad one. I was on a classified mission in the mountains. I called in an airstrike and wiped out a squad of our own men.”

  “A whole squad?” Mohan whistles. “But listen, it was a war, and mistakes happen in wars. That’s why it’s called ‘friendly fire’—”

  “It gets more complicated. My CO, General Handa, he wanted me to cover it up. Blame the attack on the Pakistanis, and prolong the war. I refused to, so they put me in jail for three years.”

  Mohan’s eyes are blazing with anger. “The fucking army. They always need to scapegoat someone. But you need to fight this, Captain, you’re a good man, you deserve better—”

  “It’s too late, Mohan. That life is over now. Anyway, I left India, moved to Martha’s Vineyard with my wife and daughter, I was working as a caretaker for this black senator. And then…”

  Ranjit’s head spins with alcohol. It is too hot in this room, his shirt is soaked with sweat, and he is very dehydrated and hungry.

  “It’s too complicated to explain, but my wife hated it there, and a lot happened. I got involved with this senator’s wife, and after that, my marriage was over.”

  Mohan raises his hand, palm out. “You don’t have to explain to me, Captain. A senator’s wife, bahut acha.” Very nice.

  “It wasn’t like that. Anyway, she’s dead now, and strangely, her husband and I are still in touch.”

  He doesn’t say that Anna had betrayed both him and the Senator, and that they share this painful memory. The two men talk occasionally, mostly when Ranjit works the night shift, at two or three A.M., when the Senator cannot sleep. But recently the Senator has been gone a lot, visiting China on human-rights missions, trying to pressure the Chinese government to reform their vast, prisonlike factories.

  Ranjit doesn’t want to discuss all this now, and certainly not with Mohan. His stomach growls, louder now, and the small, hot room seems to close in.

  “Hey, you don’t have anything to eat, do you? Lunch was hours ago.”

  Mohan frowns. “Sorry, I mainly get takeout, there’s not much space in that—” He gestures at the small fridge in the alcove.

  “You like Chinese? Is there a place nearby?”

  “I can do better than that.” Mohan stands shakily. “How about some Indian food, and
some air-conditioning? Shabana Shah had a party last night, and she’s gone for the weekend. Her fridge is full of leftovers, she asked me to throw them out. Come on, Captain.”

  Ranjit hesitates. The last thing he needs is to be caught trespassing in some stranger’s apartment. “Hey, are you sure? We can always get takeout.”

  “No problem, Captain, she gave me the keys to her place. And this is no crappy Indian takeout, it’s from that place, Junoon, on Twenty-fourth. Tandoori shrimp, saffron pullau…”

  Ranjit is very hungry, but more than that, he feels a surge of excitement at seeing Shabana’s apartment. “Okay, if you think it’s fine.”

  He staggers to his feet, and together they walk out into the long, dark corridor. They take a different set of stairs, and emerge two floors below into a wide, wood-paneled hallway. Mohan walks confidently toward the apartment door of 5C, his yellow shirt flapping around his wrists, opens it with one swift turn of his key and steps in, gesturing Ranjit to follow.

  He walks ahead, turning on lights.

  “Check this out.” He gestures like an impresario. “A real movie star pad, hanh?”

  Recessed halogen spots shine down from the fifteen-foot-high ceilings, illuminating the vast living room. Above the dark wooden wainscoting the walls are covered in beige suede wallpaper, and a carved fireplace takes up most of the far wall. The furniture is all low, sleek white leather, arranged around a smoked glass table, and above it, anchored in a rosette of plaster, is a chandelier in the shape of a tightly curled flower, its petals made of translucent plastic. By the tall windows are three full-grown ficus trees in clay tubs.

  Ranjit breathes in deeply, smelling Shabana’s scent in the air, a hint of sandalwood mixed with jasmine.

  “And look at these.” Mohan turns on more lights, revealing glass shelves along the wall, arrayed with statues, all variations of the plump elephant god, Ganesh, portrayed in bronze, in brass, and in sandstone.

  Mohan gestures at a foot-high Ganesh carved out of white marble, hacked out of some faraway temple in India. “Check this one out.”

  Ranjit runs his fingers over the cool marble, thinking that Mohan seems very familiar with Shabana’s apartment. “This lady you told me about? Are you … involved with Shabana?”

  “No, no.” Mohan grins mischievously. “I just do odd jobs for her, take out her dry cleaning, all that stuff. Come on, I’ll give you a tour.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Mohan walks ahead, clicking on more lights. There is a dining room with a long, gleaming table, presided over by a painted portrait of Shabana done in the style of a film poster.

  “Next is her bedroom.” Mohan walks down a wide corridor, turning into a stark white room at the rear of the house. It has white carpeting, a bed with a white silk canopy, and a pale marble dresser with a huge mirror.

  Ranjit is stunned when he sees the mess: the dresser is covered with dried-out bottles of mascara, used tissues, and a silver-backed hairbrush clogged with strands of long black hair. The sheets on the bed are tangled, and crumpled bath towels are strewn across the floor.

  “Your idol has feet of clay. She’s a real slob, Shabana. The cleaning people are in here for hours. Hey, here’s her when she was a kid.”

  From the dresser Mohan picks up a framed color photograph and sticks it under Ranjit’s nose. A pretty teenager wearing a crisp white salwar kameez stares shyly at the camera, and behind her are a plump, pretty woman with her head covered, and a tall, mustached man wearing the baggy shalwar of the northwest.

  “Those are her parents. She’s from a poor family. Her father came to India from Pakistan, lost everything in Partition.”

  Mohan is showing off now, enjoying himself, and Ranjit feels uncomfortable. “Mohan, we really shouldn’t be here…”

  “She’s just a woman, not a goddess, you know. All that stuff on the screen, that’s acting.” Mohan grins. “Okay, Captain, let’s eat.”

  * * *

  They sit silently at the granite island in the kitchen, the room lit only by the undersea glow of strip lights set under the cabinets. They open takeout containers and heat their heaped plates in the stainless-steel microwave, then eat with their fingers, Indian style.

  The food is unfamiliar, not the oily curries Ranjit has grown used to at Karachi Kabob: there is shrimp in coconut milk, with shreds of papaya and guava; charcoal-grilled lamb chops whose pink meat falls off the bone; rice of such fine quality that each grain holds the heady taste of saffron.

  As the food hits Ranjit’s stomach his buzz starts to wear off, but Mohan seems still pretty drunk, and eats with exaggerated gestures.

  “Damn good, hanh? I told you.” Mohan licks his fingers. “Relax, Captain, enjoy the food. She’s not coming back tonight, she’s in the Hamptons. In fact, I might just crash here, it’s too hot at my place.”

  “Sleep here? You’re not afraid of getting caught?”

  “You were always a stickler for rules, Captain. You know what I’ve realized? Rules are for poor people, scared people.” He reaches across Ranjit for a shrimp and chews as he talks. “You think the rules apply to the people who live here? They think they’re above it all, they’re better than us. The only difference is that they have”—Mohan rubs his thumb and index finger together—“and they can buy whatever they want. They buy protection, they hire lawyers and accountants. They even buy people. The things I’ve seen, Captain, you would not believe…”

  This is the old Mohan, lecturing Ranjit about how the world works.

  “I know about this city. Don’t forget, I drive a cab now.”

  Mohan smiles and shakes his head. “Yeah, of course, you must see some wild stuff. Here, you take the last lamb chop—”

  “No, no. I’m getting fat, you eat it—”

  “You’re not fat, yaar. Besides, you are my guest.” Mohan slides the lamb chop onto Ranjit’s plate and sits back. “So, what’s the craziest thing you’ve seen in your cab?”

  “The usual. Fare beaters—they always have some story about a friend who will give them the money. People making out in the back—that usually happens on Friday or Saturday night. Drunk people, who get in, but can’t tell you where they want to go. It’s not really interesting.”

  “Ah, but a handsome guy like you, you must meet a lot of women in your cab, hanh? Late at night, when they’re drunk and horny?”

  “Yes, there are women.” Ranjit thinks of the pale, long-legged Russian strippers leaving work, catatonic with exhaustion. The party girls who’ve thrown up in his cab. Girls who have just been dumped, and cry the whole way, mascara dripping down their cheeks. “But I don’t mess with that stuff.”

  “So you have a steady girlfriend, hanh? Good for you.”

  “No girlfriend. I live alone.”

  “Captain, Captain.” Mohan pushes his plate away and peers at Ranjit’s face. “What is it? Still hung up on the ex-wife?”

  Same old Mohan. Ranjit laughs. “That was over a long time ago.”

  “So it’s this Senator’s wife you’re hung up on? The dead one?”

  With his strange mixture of bluster and insight, Mohan has nailed it. Ranjit closes his eyes as he feels the pain. When he first came to New York, he would see Anna’s slim figure everywhere: jogging through Central Park, drenched in sweat, or walking down Park Avenue, wearing her backless yellow cotton dress. Now he no longer sees her, and all that is left is a bundle of emotions, pain at her betrayal mixed in with sadness.

  “So I was right, hanh? Captain, when was the last time you went out with a woman?”

  Ranjit remains silent and Mohan presses on. “One year? More than that?”

  “Mohan, forget about it, yaar—”

  “No. You are too young—we are too young—to live like this. This city is packed with single women, desperate to meet a nice guy. I tell you what. I get together with a group of friends every Friday night, at this place, Izizzi, it’s in the Meatpacking District. We have some drinks, some laughs. You should come.”

/>   “I’m not sure that I—”

  Mohan raises a hand. “You should come. It’s a few people from around here, my cousin, and some ladies. There is this Indian girl, Leela Rampersad, she’d be perfect for you: she’s smart, really cute. She used to be a nanny here at the Dakota, but now she’s going to night school at Hunter. Let me see if I have a pic…”

  Wiping his greasy hands on a paper towel, Mohan pulls out his cell phone and clicks through a series of pictures, all of brown people in semidarkness, their eyes and teeth shining. The men wear untucked shirts, and the women are in short black cocktail dresses.

  “Thought I had a pic, but maybe not.” Frowning, Mohan puts his phone away. “Anyway, she’s really cute, this girl. You have to come, yaar.”

  “Hanh, hanh. I’ll try—”

  “This Friday. Promise. And no taxi driver clothes, no security guard clothes. Wear something nice. This Leela is a classy lady, okay?”

  “Okay, okay.” Ranjit can’t help laughing. He washes his hands in the sink and dries them on a kitchen towel. “I should be going. I’m driving tomorrow, and it’s almost one. So you’re still going to sleep here tonight?”

  “I have the keys to the kingdom, Captain.” Mohan holds up a large bunch of keys and jangles them.

  “You haven’t changed at all, you’re still a bullshit artist.”

  “And you, you’re still a worrier. Here’s my number.”

  They both laugh, and exchange phone numbers. Mohan says that Ranjit better leave through the back door, since the management is uptight about people going in and out at night.

  They go down the stairs, but instead of heading into the courtyard, they walk through a musty hallway that is crowded with gardening equipment. It leads to a small door, which Mohan unlocks.

  “All clear,” he says, peering around the door. “Go down the alley, it will lead you to Seventy-third Street,” he says. “Captain … can I say something?”

  Ranjit waits and Mohan continues. “I can see you’ve taken a beating … but remember, the past is the past. You know what they say about New York?”