by Braham Singh
‘She’s waiting for you in the drawing room.’
The Maharaj was busy with a mutton curry in the kitchen over his battered, but imported, 1939 Magic Chef from Bombay Ingrid’s halcyon days. His underage assistant squatted on the floor pulling on a beedi. In India, servants have servants. The employer being near broke, neither here nor there. The Maharaj leered on seeing Ernst. The mundu shoved the lit beedi into his khaki shorts.
‘Phuddu,’ Ernst said. ‘Snuff it out first. Want to burn the building down with you?’
‘She comes in, and straightaway wants to use the toilet,’ Parvatibai said from behind. Ernst hurried down the corridor. ‘Later I had to stop her touching the Menorah with her toilet hands. Why don’t you display your shameless Tantric books instead? No one would touch those.’
‘Don’t bet on it. She makes powder mandalas on her porch. ’
‘What did you say?’
‘Good with accounts. I said, she’s good with accounts.’
The doorbell rang causing Parvatibai to brake and do a hard reverse. She left the household jangling in her wake.
‘Have you seen her teeth?’ she asked, reaching for the door. She may have said, ‘Idiot,’ too, but he wasn’t sure.
In the living room and stretching up to the Menorah on the mantelpiece, the girl didn’t notice him come in. Her foot nudged against one of Salim Ali’s cold-rolled pipe samples on the floor. Now the damn things were everywhere. She pushed the pipe aside, her toe-ring grating against the red oxide floor tiles and she continued inspecting the Menorah with her toilet hands.
Today’s sari was white, with a thick green border and tucked around the waist. The starched fabric fluffed out and her dark feet peeked from beneath the billowing cotton as she stood on crimson toes. For no reason at all, he swore to never fuck a Daisy Lansdowne again.
Seeing Ernst, she backed away from the mantelpiece, stepped on Salim Ali’s pipe, stumbled as it rolled, then slipped, lost her balance, and fell against him. This was how Parvatibai found them when she walked in.
~
The girl had moved away, recklessly ignored Parvatibai and disengaging, deigned a curt namaste to Ernst. Falling into his arms, her body had felt hard. She had thrust apart on contact. He imagined her thrusting back instead. It left him irritated.
‘What is it for anyway?’ the girl asked, pointing to the Menorah. ‘Candles?’
They sat across each other.
‘Shouldn’t we look at the ledgers? Your meter’s running.’
She allowed the banter to fall flat and he got another whiff of her from where he sat. He found it impossible to put aside the visual of Chhote Bhai thrusting at her on the greens. There was this urge to confront. Was that really you? Did both of you go for it on the grass? There was grass sticking to the back of her sari as she had shimmied past that evening, so he must have been on top .
She had ignored him outside the Administrative Building, and she had ignored him emerging from the greens with Chhote Bhai. Seeing her sit on the sofa with legs pressed together underneath the sari, he found it got to him. What was it? Because with teeth like that and the receding chin, there was nothing there but youth. Is that all it took?
Knees together under the fluffed sari and with a purse at her feet, the girl studied her surroundings and wasn’t impressed. He cleared his throat. Not looking at her helped clear his head.
‘Parvatibai. Chai please. For two.’
‘I need to ask you something.’ Her starched cotton sari spread out on the sofa. She adjusted herself and a dark dot of a navel peeked through the folds of white fabric. Except for the dent it made, the veiled, brown stomach was a washboard.
When Parvatibai came in with the tea, she gave them both the look, then crouched to place the tray on the coffee table and didn’t bother serving. Hefting her load with amazing grace she walked away, her mountainous arse cheeks grinding against each other through the Marathi-style, nine-yard sari. Usually times like this, conversation stopped and people would observe in silence.
~
I’m done with this, he thought, and said, ‘The ledgers are in the dining room.’
‘What are you going to do about Arjun?’
No doubt he had heard her correctly. He however refused to believe it.
‘What am I doing about Arjun?’
‘Yes. What are you doing about him dying like that?’
‘What should I do about it?’
‘Something.’
‘Who says?’
‘Salim Ali.’
As she got talking, Ernst learnt more about himself. Apparently, he could do anything. After all, he built the workshop from scratch and with phoren machines no one else had—probably the Cold Pilger is what she meant, in which case he didn’t have it either. She went on to say that he did things other bosses wouldn’t; she knew he sat with the workers over lunch.
‘Salim Ali told you that?’
‘He says you fought for the workers at Sassoons. He said that’s why you lost your job.’
He says this, and he said that; it went on for a bit. Someone listening would mistakenly conclude Salim Ali held him in awe or something.
‘Still, what makes you think I can do anything about Arjun’s death?’
‘I heard how you took panga with Henry Gomes at Fertilisers. Really, what were you thinking? Going for his throat like that. No wonder Salim Ali says you can do anything you want.’
‘My father used to say anyone can do anything they want. Like Salim Ali, he was wrong.’
Her emphatic cheekbones made a triangle with the jaw and there was that grand sweep of her forehead; the extent of any resemblance with her mother—that Sindhi-white lady with the pail on the porch, holding on to a jhadoo and a vacant smile. The girl also resembled someone else he knew but her buck teeth came in the way. He couldn’t put a finger to it. If she was self-conscious about her teeth, it didn’t show.
‘Are you going to do something, or what?’
The same day Arjun’s killed, you go for a roll on the grass with a big, black man. And now you want something done about his death?
‘Did Salim Ali talk you into this?’
‘Of course not. He does mention you all the time though. Ernest this, Ernest that. When Beatrice Madam asked me to come here, I thought why not? Maybe you really are what Salim Ali claims. Maybe you can do something about Arjun. The police won’t.’ He saw her face harden. ‘What? You think I came here for the money?’
‘Of course not.’
Whatever the reason, at least she had come for him.
‘I’m not going to see your money anyway,’ she said. ‘Beatrice Madam will keep it. I just came for Arjun. You need to do something.’
~
The evening was winding down by the time she pointed to the framed pictures in the photo corner.
‘Who’s that?’
The Kashmiri salver in silver on wooden legs was busy with Berlin memorabilia. It made his past deceptively presentable. Even so, he hadn’t looked that way for a while. A long while. He preferred keeping a safe distance.
There was his mother with her chubby cheeks—Betty, the Aryan. His father, cheerfully chubby all around—Siegfried, the Jew. There was another worn-out photograph of the two of them together with him—their little, mixed-breed mischlinge.
He looked at his mother smile. You couldn’t see the mole on her shoulder that had, just around then, taken on a life of its own. He remembered her shiny curls and how they dulled as the cancer took hold. The yellowish-brown picture, however, showed nothing of that sort and her chubby cheeks remained intact in the foxed photograph on the silver tray with its legs in walnut wood.
The girl however, wasn’t pointing to his mother. As always, Berlin Ingrid stole the show. This time, from the picture with the silver frame; standing next to him on their wedding day: 10th April 1935. Nazi Brownshirts had thrown stones at the wedding party that day. He remembered protecting her from the shards as the synagogue’s stained glass
Tree of Life shattered about them.
Next to the wedding photograph was another one of Bombay Ingrid with the memsahibs on the Golf Club verandah. Bombay Ingrid looking into the camera and the memsahibs looking daggers. Then, the one of Bombay Ingrid with him and the Morris 8. Right next to that of Bombay Ingrid standing in front of the “Zaankert” at Sassoon Docks when it was time for bye-byes. He remembered she couldn’t wait to turn around and walk up the gangplank.
Bhairavi rephrased.
‘Who is she?’
He looked at his wife humouring him one last time as he had struggled with his Leica at Sassoon Docks for that one last picture.
‘My wife,’ he said.
‘That one,’ she said, pointing to what could be anywhere at the back of the clutter. ‘With the children on her lap. ’
Which one exactly? Oh yes, that, as if he didn’t know. A svelte outline in platinum-white hair, marble skin, calves to die for, seated on a bench, two little children on her lap. And the barbed wire in the background, somewhat out of focus. It was difficult for anyone, and more so for the brilliantly blonde Ingrid, to believe she was a Jew.
‘Same. It’s my wife, Ingrid.’
‘She’s beautiful. Why is she wearing a uniform?’
Why indeed.
Parvatibai came by to interrupt the show & tell. She stretched across the doorway like the world’s most successful goalie, an arsecheek touching each side. Impregnable. ‘Phone,’ she said, fully articulating the ‘ph’ sound Marathi-style.
‘Phor you,’ she said to Ernst, looking directly at the Sindhi Refugee Camp girl, with those buck teeth.
13
Salim Ali versus the Rest of Us
Because we have a 90% literacy rate.
—E.M.S. Namboodiripad, CPM leader, on why Kerala is communist
He found Salim Ali squatting in the corridor, gaunt and with something eating him from within. He looked like a Mallu Sisyphus after the boulder had rolled downhill again. Parvatibai squatted opposite the troubled hero. The two just sat there, sipping chai and didn’t bother standing. Parvatibai had her elbow resting on a gunny bag with wires spilling out. It looked like the one he’d seen at Salim Ali’s place. He wished he hadn’t seen it. She raised her arm to nudge Salim Ali.
‘Unbelievable,’ is how Salim Ali came at him. ‘Less than half your bleddy age. To top it all, she’s my friend.’
‘I wouldn’t need her help with accounts if you lot submitted your expenses properly.’
Salim Ali looked incredulous, then curled his lip to go full-sneer. Ernst wanted to sneer back. ‘I see now why she would broadcast communist nonsense for you over the intercom. The question remains, why would you make her?’
‘I told you, she didn’t do it for me.’
‘She did it for Arjun. So what? You could’ve stopped her risking her job.’
‘It was to announce our intent. To let them know they will all pay.’
Ernst looked at the gunny bag with Fertilisers’ green swastika logo and those wires sticking out. He pointed to it .
‘More likely we will all pay.’
‘And by that you mean?’
‘Just because I’m too scared to add two plus two, doesn’t mean you hide that in my home. Get it out of here.’
‘It doesn’t concern you.’
‘Precisely. Get it out of here. Or tell me what’s going on.’
Then there was this other matter. You’ve been saying nice things about me. He let that one go. Like the sulphur burner at Fertilisers, Salim Ali functioned best when fired up.
‘Unbelievable,’ Salim Ali repeated himself, as Ernst squeezed past to the telephone.
It was Sassoon’s Major Punjabi. Ernst could hear him harangue a minor Punjabi from his sales team. He waited for the Major to revert.
‘Mr. Ernest?’
‘Hello Major. All well?’
‘Of course, my dear. We go from strength to strength.’
‘How is Sassoonji?’
‘Sassoonji needs me,’ the Major said, speaking as if not to Ernst, but a larger audience of minor Punjabis.
The last time Major Punjabi didn’t speak to him was in Venky Iyer’s office—the man as confused as Ernst at the turn of events. He seemed to have recovered his equanimity and the martial confidence was back; China beware. Without Sassoon around however, the Major’s accent had regressed. He struggled past his Punjabi, to state, ‘You draw stainless steel pipes.’
Ernst confirmed that was what he did.
‘You have Cold Pilger, I’m told.’
‘Yes, of course. Why?’
‘Good question. Sassoonji wants a large order moved to you. God knows why, but boss is boss, what?’
Compared to banias like the Seth, reading a Punjabi was a breeze. Yet today Ernst didn’t know what to make of this. Major Punjabi did.
‘Be grateful.’
Ernst was. Truly. ‘What grade stainless steel, Major, and what are the pipes for?’
‘Why? So you can bypass us? We will supply you the design specs. No need to worry about what for. ’
There was a pause and Ernst wanted to do a Sassoon and point out: Preposition! Instead he said how impressed he was with the Major’s astuteness, also that really, there was nothing to worry about.
He worried, said the Major, because that was his job. ‘It’s large, the requirement. Almost three truckloads. So please note that’s why the Cold Pilger. But you’re German, so you know. Also, the inner diameter has to be thin. Not more than thirty-one millimetre.’
Rolling mill technology was almost exclusively German. Be that as it may, the fact remained Ernst did not have the Cold Pilger anymore. He did have two Ludhiana cold rolling benches, and they were perfectly fine for making lawn furniture. It was known far and wide that Salim Ali could get his unionised labour to work miracles on the crude, cold rolling benches. Given the size of this order though, even he couldn’t make a Ludhiana machine do a Cold Pilger. The Major once again reminded Ernst he wanted thin, not thick.
Thin!
‘Got it, Major. We’ll need an advance of course.’
‘If it’s a must. But only because these are strict delivery dates. Best you deliver at your earliest convenience.’
‘Of course. Anything else I can do for you?’
‘Yes.’ Major Punjabi kept silent until the tension threatened to snap the telephone line. Sassoon was a good teacher.
‘Your Muslim communist. The Mian.’
Ernst took a deep breath and released it in a silent, meditative expunge.
‘Sassoonji intervened to help you last week against my better judgement. Against my advice and caution. Now he also wants to give you this order. What’s your problem?’
Hearing the Major being a Punjabi prick, Ernst travelled back in time to before he turned invisible. He was the one on Sassoon’s flank in the original scheme of things, not this man. Having said that, would he too have stood to attention like Major Punjabi every time the great man farted? Probably not. But he did want all of everything else that came with standing erect at the sound of a Sassooni fart. In which case, Salim Ali had suggested on learning what happened back then, maybe he should’ve remained a corporate turd instead of wandering over to the worker’s side .
‘Maybe that’s why you’re so anti-workers these days,’ was Salim Ali’s prognosis. ‘Because of what happened to you. You blame us.’
Sure. That’s why I sold the Cold Pilger to pay for salaries.
Those were pitched battles at Sassoons, Ernst had to admit, admiring his own fervour from back in the day—the General Manager and a German to boot, taking up on behalf of the workers. It confused the hell out of everyone on both sides and there was palpable relief on Sassoon’s face the day two Tommies showed up at the office—23rd October 1939—with the official gazetted announcement on enemy aliens.
I turned invisible that morning, Ernst would say about the day the Tommies took him away. He came out from confinement after the war, only to get fi
red. It still hurt and his heart still sank. Just like that heartbeat to the mole on his face, the hurt made no sense after all these years. Yet, there it was.
‘I must ask again. What is your problem?’
‘No problem, Major. Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’m ex-army. I know operations. How do you plan to deliver on time when your mian spends all day being communist?’
‘Not to worry. Trade union activity is only permitted outside of working hours.’
‘Why allowed at all? Don’t you have a business to run? And what about your good name?’
Actually, a good question. Did he have a business to run? Between his playing with that girl in the living room, and Salim Ali playing Lenin, one would never know.
‘Did you know, Mr. Ernest, the 9th Punjab was my regiment?’
One didn’t know that either.
‘I was by then retired of course. Regardless, they fought the Chinese to the last man and the last bullet.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Now you understand? I don’t like these communist kind of rascals. They should be thrown to the wolves. Besides, the man’s a thief. Do something.’
As if something could be done. Ernst eyed Salim Ali spewing Marxist crap all over Parvatibai in fluent Marathi. Arm thrown over the Fertilisers gunny bag, a radicalised Parvatibai gave Ernst the look, as if all his fault. Caught up in a quick fantasy about throwing Salim Ali to the wolves, he didn’t pay proper attention to Major Punjabi’s exhortations. The Major began sounding mellower for reasons Ernst must have missed.
‘I know you won’t bugger with the status quo, Mr. Ernestji. I’ll send over the advance. People like you and me hold this nation together. We don’t encourage thievery. Just ask the mian to return what he stole. To not be such a Muslim.’
The bit about buggering the status quo; and earlier, don’t you have a business to run? It was like talking to a Sassoon gone Punjabi. Ernst’s sphincter clamped tight around a non-existent cork.
