The young man who stepped forth was the total opposite of the patriarch. Where Bubba was generous in physique, Iftikhar was miserly. Where Bubba wore an expansive gray Western suit, Iftikhar wore a traditional (collarless) white narrow suit. Gold necktie for one, no tie for the other. Bangly and clangy one—soft, silent, and smooth, the other. Effervescent, one—reticent, the other. A clumping elephant, one—a purring gentle household cat, the other. What a pair! The only possible similarity they appeared to have was that they both wore shoes.
The old doorman, his face hidden, gray head ever downcast, gently pulled the doors shut. Despite there being five bodies in the room, there were only three relevant people: Bubba, his son, and I. The man in the blue suit, having been the master mover, was now invisible, as was Hita. Father looked at son and nodded. “You like her, boy?” His son forced a smile and responded, “Father, yes, I like her.”
There was a second of silence as if to let the air soften. Unexpectedly, Iftikhar broke the stillness by moving toward the table. He was light and nimble and had a higher-stepping gait than his slim physique necessitated. His movement reminded me of a gazelle. His body was so thin that it merely served as a coat for his skeleton, rather than his skeleton providing a scaffold for his body. Because of his meager physical presence, he looked younger than I suspected he was. I estimated him to be about eighteen. Also, probably for the same reason, his head looked large on his body. It was triangular—wide at the brow, long to the jaw, with thin cheeks. There was an impotent attempt at a mustache below his dead straight and narrow nose.
Sometimes, when I was a child, I would catch lizards with my bare hands; it required enormous inner stillness and explosive release. The lizard’s lips reminded me of Iftikhar’s. They were thin and pale and rolled over his teeth like cigarette paper over tobacco. Looking closely, I could see that the little muscles of his mouth were taut, which drew his pencil-thin lips inward, as if tightened by elastic. This was a mouth that would hold words in rather than divulge inner thoughts. His hair was a haphazard blob of black. His eyes were his most perplexing feature. They were blacker than they were brown and were framed dramatically by the harsh lines of his face. His eyes held an unwavering stare and I sensed he was somewhere that was “not quite here.” On first guess, this son of an effervescent, wealthy man might be expected to be the meek recipient of plentitude. Iftikhar was not this at all. His eyes portrayed steel. He was an engine quietly turning over, unconvinced by the exuberance that had seeded him. His eyes were those of a quiet will in waiting, in contrast to his body, which exhibited a jitteriness of immediacy. This was a person you would be foolish to discount or turn your back on.
Iftikhar’s voice matched his body. There was tremulousness to his diction and his tone was set high. For a man he sounded shy, hesitant, and effeminate. He said, “Why is there a pile of paper on the table?” It was a deflecting question that came from a nervous mind. Everyone else looked at my pile of paper too. Hita spoke, “It is for the girl.” “For the girl?” Iftikhar said, as much with his dark eyebrows as with his mouth. Hita answered, glancing at me and throwing a wave in my direction, “She likes to write stories.” “She does?” Iftikhar said, and cocked his head. He looked at me and was about to say something when Bubba interjected, “You’ve got a bright one here, Ifti … Anyway, you lovebirds, have a wonderful time. I have business to take care of.” As he said this, he glanced at the blue suit, who silently nodded in agreement, and the two of them turned for the door. As they exited, I heard Bubba say to the blue suit, “As always, Mr. Vas, you excel.”
The door closed behind them. There was a long silence and both Iftikhar and I looked to Hita as if she knew the next step in the dance. Momentarily thrown, she gathered her wits and said to me, “Come to the bathroom, Batuk, and I will check your makeup.” I knew my makeup was perfect and followed her to the bathroom. “Sit!” Hita said to me, pointing to the closed toilet seat. “I will speak plainly,” she continued. “You are here to make Iftikhar happy.” She cleared her throat and looked down at the stone floor. “You will teach him how to … how to … be a husband.” She cleared her throat again. “With a woman. You understand?” She held me by the shoulders, her fingers pressing into me. “You understand?” Never had I truly doubted why I had been taken from my nest to this palace. I understood the impact of time on events and now my current purpose was upon me. I looked at Hita and nodded.
Hita continued, “You would be a wise girl to make Iftikhar happy … If you do, you could be well rewarded, and if you don’t … well, I am sure you know.” She smiled and I nodded. “I will be back tomorrow. One last thing: gifts or money or jewelry he gives you—you give to me. You understand, Batuk … you understand?” I laughed to myself, as I suspected that Hita was well versed in all the tricks Puneet used to hide little extras from Mamaki. However, the Tiger Suite was much larger than any nest and I was much smarter than Puneet and much, much smarter than Hita. Hita left the bathroom and seconds later, I heard the main door of the Tiger Suite close. The performance had begun.
I walk through the bedroom into the main room to find Iftikhar flicking through the pile of empty paper on the table. He turns to me. “So where’s your writing, then?” I lied, “I haven’t done any since I have been here.”
I had written all about my trip here and the grotesque doctor while Hita had been absent. I hid the sheets of paper in the bathroom. By folding the papers lengthwise, I could slide the paper up behind the tubing under the sink and it stayed there, perfectly invisible. What was even better was that I had placed a pen in the crease of the paper fold so that whenever I wanted to write, I would come to the bathroom, pull the paper down, and there was my pen. When I was done writing, I would quickly replace the paper and pen. I have also rehidden the blue notebook, shoving it between the mattress and the base of the bed as deep down as I could reach. I figure that not even the most voracious cleaner will ever find it there.
Iftikhar continues, “So what would you write about me?” I take the pose of the subservient and look downward. “I don’t really know you.” I tense, as there is irritation in his voice: “Say how you would describe me!” I hesitate as though I am pretending to think. “I would say you are nice and well dressed and handsome.” “How old do you think I am?” he asks. “Twenty-seven or twenty-eight,” I say. I hear him shifting his weight, but he does not correct me even though I know this is rubbish.
He sits on the sofa, takes the small black control box in his hand, and switches on the television. He is looking at different television channels and eventually chooses football. “You can sit,” he says. I had remained unmoving, standing in front of him, but now I sit on the sofa next to him, separated by a few feet of space. I clench my hands and my toes and wait.
Which do you think has supremacy, the bus or its fuel? You may say the bus, because it conveys the driver and its passengers over distance. However, it is stationary and useless without fuel. Fuel on the other hand can be used to run another bus or a car or to heat water. The fuel can also be used as a bomb. It is clear that the fuel has the power. Here, I am the fuel and I follow the scent of his fear like a leopard tracking prey.
I remain sitting separately from Iftikhar and watch football with him. I could be watching bread rise for all I care. I do not know the rules or understand the rationale of men dressed in different colors kicking a ball endlessly to each other, only to eventually kick it into a net so that it can be taken out of the net and the process repeated. As I watch I realize that without the ball, there is nothing, just twenty men wearing shorts and wondering what to do for a few hours. It is the ball that has the power. When the game ends (another one will soon start, according to the announcer), Iftikhar turns to me and says, “Write me a poem.” I do not say anything. I walk over to the table and sit in front of the pile of paper. I close my eyes for a second. My father has come to bring me home from the hospital. I cuddle against his chest, which smells of the fields, and I read. There before me ar
e the streaming verses of Namdev; one verse flows into the next. Soon Father and I are asleep, blanketed in each other’s dreams. I take a pen from the desk and write:
My master is a bow of yew
On his arm an arrow rests
It is his command to release
Its flight to feathered nest
Listen to my voice whisper:
You
You are my prize, beyond
All value on earth, behold
Me
It is a contrived and ugly little poem. I walk over to the couch and hand it to him. As he reads, his upper lip curls in disdain. He asks, “You wrote this?” To which I respond, “Yes, sir.” He looks up at me with a gaze as pitiless as steel, smiles, and raises the paper between us. He tears the paper down its middle and then tears it again. As he lets the pieces fall, he watches for my reaction. Does he really think that the paper contains the poem? What a fool he is, for it is the words that contain the poem.
“That is what I think of your stupid poem,” he says. At first, I look down at his feet in feigned regret. “I am sorry sir.” Then, I raise my gaze to his. He stands up, the television singing an advertisement in the background, and takes a step toward me. I meet his gaze out of defiance. We stare at each other, our faces a handbreadth apart. Almost as if he cannot think of anything else to do, he spits in my face. There is no malice in this action whatsoever. He spits again. He watches with detached curiosity as his saliva slides down my face. After watching a full minute in silence, he whispers, “Go clean yourself.” “Yes, sir.” I subserviently go to the bathroom and wash. The cool water I dab on my face is a pleasant pause and I temporarily become lost staring at myself in the mirror. I turn off the faucet and my consciousness rejoins the present. I return to the main room, which seems smaller than when I left.
“Iftikhar, sir.” It is the first time I use his name and I speak it quietly. “I am sorry you did not like my stupid poem. It was my first try and I am not a good writer.” He has returned to the sofa and the television. “Then why do you like writing if you are no good at it?” he asks in a clipped tone. I am standing in front of him. He stares at the television. I answer, “I do it because I like to put things on paper. I like to see my thoughts because otherwise they are invisible.” His eyes flick away from the television and meet my gaze for a moment. He asks, “But why do you do something that you are bad at?” I ask him in reply “Then, sir, are you good at everything you do?” He thinks and answers, “Yes.” I am still standing in front of him in my beautiful dress and shining black shoes, a bird of prey. There are torn pieces of paper on the carpet. He continues staring at the television. After a silence, I ask him, “So what do you do?” This question has baked more bread for me than any other. A man’s favorite subject is himself; become his mirror and he will talk forever. He frowns and continues staring at the screen. “What do you do?” he says with a wry smile flickering onto his face. “You know what I do,” I say, “but I am interested in what you do.” “Why?” “I just am.” He answers without looking at me, “I waste time at school and work for my father, that fat pig.” I need him to like me and so I take a long stick and poke the snake and agree. “He seems to be a little overbearing.” “So you think he’s overbearing?” “Yes,” I say, but I am right, he is a snake, and I have been trapped. “So you, whore, who screws men all day, think my father, a businessman and financier, is overbearing? Well, let’s see if he agrees with you, whore.”
Iftikhar silences the television and picks up the phone that sits on a small table to the left of the sofa. He is watching me with his every movement as he dials. He speaks into the mouthpiece, “Daddy, hi—it’s Ifti.” The snake has me in his coil. Panic seeps onto my face and tightens around my body. He speaks with a sneer. “I am here with your birthday present … I should tell you she has quite a mouth.” I throw myself at his feet. Holding both his feet in my hands I start kissing them. “Please, please, master, I beg you.” I grasp his thighs in my hands and press my body against him. My breasts press against his knees and I look up at him—an imploring puppy dog. He continues on the telephone, my whimpering in the background. “Yes, I rather like her. She is more interesting than the last one” (a pause), “yes, that too” (laughter is followed by a pause), “yes, yes I will.” He looks down at me, stretches out his lizardlike grin, and puts the phone down. I am desperately grasping his legs. I fold my body over his legs and bury my head between his thighs. As he puts the phone down, he roars with laughter. “You were terrified I’d tell the fat bastard.” “Thank you, master, thank you, master,” I say to his legs. “Now let’s see how thankful you are.” He places his hands on the back of my head. The second I feel his hands there, I know that it is I who have him.
He grasps my head tightly and pulls my head up his thighs. He pushes it into his groin. I can feel and see his growing bhunnas through the soft material of his pants. I can size up a man the instant he enters my nest and I am never wrong. I know Iftikhar is as constrained in this area as everywhere else. He is pushing my face down hard over the mound in his pants and I obligingly open my mouth and sing the song he wants to hear. Almost within a second he jams my mouth down over him, pushing as hard as his might can bear. I feel his pulsations on my lips and without tasting the wetness through the cotton, I know his juice is oozing from him. He cannot see this, but my eyes are staring widely into his groin and my mouth is breaking into a smile.
Iftikhar then catches me off guard. In one movement, he throws me off him. I plunge to the floor. I can see the damp spot in his pants from here. He now stands over me. Time slows, but I have no control to move within it. I am watching and cannot move. He tilts his body forward so that his weight rides over his left leg; his right leg draws back. I think of the footballer on television and I become a football. I am watching his foot race to my face. My eyes respond but my body cannot. The contact pain is excruciating. My head is being booted off my body. I am conscious but my head spins, the flesh of my cheek has ripped on his shoe, and I reel in agony, for I am wrong; it is the foot that has power. I scream out as I fly backward and land on my back. He is moving toward me, pivoting on his left leg, but this time my arms pull up to my face and my head folds downward. The impact of his foot on my arms is a new pain. I scamper from him on all fours—a rat—under the table. I cry out; the pain is ripping across my face. I am panting but I can see he is not coming after me. Suddenly Iftikhar screams. I am startled. What right has he to scream? He cannot feel my pain. But then I listen to his noise and it is more a cry that he utters. Within the long, constant howl, I hear a sound I know well: hopeless despair. It is a torrent of misery that spills out of him, and even when his voice becomes silent, the sadness pours forth.
From here under the table I can see his legs. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. His feet are making a decision. I barely breathe. The pain shears across my face. My arms ache. Time passes. He decides; he turns and walks away. The bedroom doors are slammed together and bounce back unshut. I am not moving from here. I do not make a sound. He slams the doors shut again but this time they hold. He kicks at something. Then the noise from the bedroom stops. The television sings another advert.
A long time passes. I am still crouched under the table listening to the television (another game of football). He has not come back in here. I can hear the bath filling. He makes a telephone call from the bedroom but I cannot hear the words. Minutes pass and the bathwater is turned off. I wait and crawl to the bedroom door on all fours, lifting each limb to avoid creating any sound; the carpet is so soft. I listen against the bedroom door. It is silent except for occasional sloshes of water. I get up. I can walk. I try out my body. I am hurt but I can move. I walk to the main door and very gently try the handle. It is locked. I crawl back under the table. I lie here. What? Oh, I know. You don’t need to pity me, for you have suffered much worse. You were free. I was also free but a long time ago. Now we are here together. You and I both were wanderers but now here we are togeth
er. You need to go to sleep too. Good night, Tiger.
Lying under the table, protected by the chairs, I hear a knock at the Tiger Suite’s main door. The bedroom door opens and I can see Iftikhar’s legs. He unlocks the main door. A tray of food has arrived and he orders it to be taken to the bedroom while he stands (guard?) by the door. He switches off the television in here before locking the main door again and returning to the bedroom. He does not look for me or speak. The bedroom television is on, but an hour or two later it is silenced. I assume that he has gone to sleep. It is too quiet here. I miss the sounds of the Common Street that have for so long been a part of my rhythm.
Despite the silence, I fall asleep under the table. I half awake with the sunrise as the first sun showers into the room. When I wake up, the carpet where my head has been is stained with darkened blood and my face aches. I need to go to the toilet.
I tiptoe across the main room and silently rotate the door handle of the bedroom. The right door gently swings open. There is a tiny whine of the hinges but not enough to stir the sleeping prince. I inch across the bedroom to reach the bathroom door, which Iftikhar has left open. He is a silent sleeper.
Once I reach the bathroom, I am faced with a dilemma: how best to urinate. If I go in the toilet, I will have to flush it, which will be far too noisy. I cannot climb up onto the sink, and so I decide to urinate in the empty bath. I pull the red dress up over my hips and walk silently up the three stone steps to the bath. I step into it and stand as close as possible to the plug hole and allow my bladder to release itself. The urine is dark and smelly and trickles over the floor of the white tub and down the drain. Once I climb out of the bath, I pull a few pieces of toilet paper from the roll and wipe away any traces of urine, then throw the paper in the trash.
The Blue Notebook Page 13
