Sea of Innocence

by Desai, Kishwar

  ‘Are you looking for someone?’ The sudden question made me stop in my tracks.

  I swung around quickly. For a moment the dark figure standing on the platform with the sun behind him looked like a madman, wearing loose pyjamas, his hands raised over his head. It looked like he had a knife in one hand. I almost screamed.

  As I took a few steps backwards and stumbled into the stream behind me, the figure leapt down, and grabbed me. I gasped, ready to push him away, and found that it was Stanley, swaying and grinning.

  He didn’t seem murderous at all.

  Even though I was still shaking with fright, he gave me an encouraging and friendly smile.

  He was a bit the worse for wear, with his straggly red beard and his thinning hair, tied in the ubiquitous pony-tail. The ‘knife’ in his hand turned out to be a bong used in these parts for smoking mariuana.

  ‘Oh, thank God it’s you,’ I said, once I was steady on my feet, and my heart resumed its normal pace.

  ‘Who did you expect, my darlin’?’ he said in a familiar lilt. ‘It’s my patch. I grew this tree from a sapling. Been here as long as it has.’

  I wondered if he was stoned already, and then, as he gave me a smile through nicotine-stained teeth, I realized that he was just joking. I tried to laugh, but it came out as a choked cough.

  ‘I . . . was looking for you. And Marian.’

  ‘I don’t know where she is today. She’s normally here quite early. Sometimes I go over to her place, but last night a friend called me over for some music. Man, what a night, what a blast.’

  Looking at him I was, frankly, envious. Despite his time-worn appearance, he had managed to both simplify his life and remain an adolescent forever. While the rest of us were moving irrevocably towards certain death, he seemed to have discovered the secret of rebirth.

  ‘I loved the music you played here,’ I couldn’t resist telling him. ‘Made me feel so nostalgic. I was here for your anniversary celebration.’

  ‘Oh man – wasn’t that rocking, rocking? I hope you don’t mind, I got to bathe, man.’ He got up onto the platform and without the slightest embarrassment stripped in front of me and walked to the stream.

  I was amused by his casual nudity. I had seen enough of the early nudists on the Goan beaches not to be surprised. Stanley had obviously stuck to his natural lifestyle through the years. His stubborn desire not to change was admirable.

  ‘Tell me,’ I asked gently facing the other way so I wouldn’t have to watch his ablutions, ‘do you know where I could find Liza?’

  ‘Wild child, wild child,’ he said, while splashing water on himself. ‘Haven’t heard from her for a long, long time. Unlikely. Unlikely.’

  I turned and looked at him, startled. He had rubbed himself clean with some sort of soap and now was vigorously towelling himself down with a well-used piece of cloth. He reminded me of the sanyasis who often trekked around the Himalayas, looking for spiritual succour, with little else than a loin cloth and a lota. Though, of course, in Stanley’s case he was not exactly looking for a spiritual higher power, having already found his salvation at the end of a reefer, no doubt.

  ‘So, where is she? Aren’t you worried? She’s your daughter.’

  He shook water from his dreadlocks, hopped back onto the platform and slipped on his pyjamas again. Then, bending over the small steel box, he took out a sleeveless red t-shirt, mumbling to himself while pulling it on. It seemed he hadn’t heard me.

  ‘Good as new, good as new.’ He had a disconcerting habit of repeating phrases every now and then. ‘Looking good, good looking?’

  ‘Oh, you’re looking wonderful. The colour suits you,’ I said, for lack of anything else to say. He shared an annoying habit with Marian of not quite being there.

  Like father, like daughter, I thought.

  ‘I’m looking for Liza,’ I said abruptly and emphatically, barely controlling my irritation, realizing that if I didn’t come to the point quickly the conversation could go on for ages.

  ‘So am I,’ he said surprisingly. ‘I’ve been looking for her for a long time. She came and left, left and came. If you find her, do tell me. But don’t tell anyone else. Because too many people are looking for her.’

  ‘Which people?’ I asked.

  ‘Raman and Joseph, for instance. Or Joseph and Raman.’

  ‘Who’s that? I don’t know them.’

  ‘Oh, if you go onto the beach, you’ll get to know everyone. Everyone . . .’

  He only seemed to have heard the second half of my query.

  ‘Who . . . are . . . Raman . . . and . . . Joseph? I asked slowly.

  ‘Hang around Fernando’s. Ex-policemen. They work for Gupta, you know, he owns the damn place – that fellow who’s in parliament. I don’t know why you guys have these fellows there. Bullshit parliament here. As bad as the British. Why did you choose such a bad system? Bloody capitalists, bloody bloodsuckers. Look at the UK, what’s the point of living there?

  ‘And look what this Indian government has done to Goa. It used to be so beautiful. Turned into a shithole. You know, man, when we came here it was so clean and beautiful. The sky was blue, the sea was blue and the beaches were white. Now the sea is grey, the sky is grey and the beach is grey. Man, sometimes you can’t even see the fucking beach, it’s so covered with plastic. And people. Lots and lots of people you don’t need. You call this development? I call it bullshit.’

  I sighed. I knew this outburst only too well, having heard it a million times from all kinds of people, including Indians.

  He would now launch into a faux-Marxian tirade against the industrialists, and then about the class struggle, against war, nuclear power, and so on.

  ‘Alright,’ I cut in before he went any further, ‘can you describe Raman and Joseph? Are they sort of tall and well-built? Always in trousers and shirts? Shoes? Slightly formally dressed?’

  ‘That’s them alright. Fucking wear that shit to the beach, you know. Haven’t bought me a drink in their life.’

  That was them. No drinks in their own hands either.

  I wondered if I could risk showing him the party video, but hesitated, as he might get upset, seeing Vinay Gupta with Liza. What father, even one who was totally on his own trip, would remain calm and unemotional watching his daughter being manhandled by a central government minister?

  On second thoughts, I decided to show him just the last frame, with the two men who I thought were Raman and Joseph. I didn’t know why it was so important that I knew if these were the same men, but so far my instinct had been working well for me today.

  I handed my phone to him with the frozen frame of the two men.

  ‘Are these the two guys?’ I almost said ‘fucking guys’. His language was catching.

  ‘Rotten photograph but it looks like them. You got to fucking change your photographer, man. He’s terrible. Can barely see them. Hopefully he doesn’t charge a lot of money,’ he said chuckling, rolling a cigarette. ‘You want a drag?’

  It really was like being in the last century. I hadn’t heard this style of speaking since I was in college. I shook my head firmly and took out my own cigarette; memories of the drug nightmare still stuck in my head. I had no idea what he was smoking, and even if it was just tobacco, I wasn’t taking any chances.

  Meanwhile, I located the photograph of Liza on my phone and handed it back to him.

  ‘Great. And here I have Liza.’

  He immediately looked up at me. A shrewd look crossed his face.

  Then he blew out smoke, and his lips straightened into a grim line as he looked down at the phone in his hand.

  ‘That’s her alright. Where did you get this photograph?’

  The chubby-faced Liza smiled into the camera, and at him.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I bluffed again.

  ‘She sent it to me.’

  ‘So how come she only sent you half?’

  I looked at him, puzzled by his sudden observational skills. Was this laid-b
ack and ‘cool’ attitude only a cover?

  ‘How do you know it’s only half?’

  ‘Look at it closely. Don’t you see that man’s hand on her shoulder?’

  I tried to zoom in as much as I could. And then I realized that with her tangled hair flowing down, I hadn’t seen the hand at all. But now looking closely I could make out the shape of the dark fingers with a gold ring on one of them.

  ‘Have you seen the whole photograph somewhere else?’ I asked him.

  He nodded.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Someone you should know if you’ve met the other bastards you just showed me.’ For just a moment I thought his voice was far too brittle for someone who claimed that he did not care.

  ‘Vinay Gupta?’ I asked.

  ‘Shhhhh. These trees have may not have any bark, but they bite,’ he smiled.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop her?’ I said. ‘He’s old enough to be her father, but you’re her real father.’

  ‘Ever tried to argue with a 16-year-old? Man, I left that life long ago. I didn’t even fucking remember she was my daughter till she turned up one day. Don’t lecture me, ma’am.’

  I could sympathize with his inability to force an adolescent into behaving in a socially acceptable fashion. I had lost too many debates with Durga over the years.

  ‘Please don’t call me “ma’am”. My name is Simran.’

  His eyes crinkled a little, and I found myself warming to him. Alright, he was a bit strange, but he seemed like an honest man.

  We smoked silently for a while, and it was obvious that he was getting more and more relaxed, as he spread his legs out and leant against the tree trunk. I sat on the edge of the platform, not too far away from him. I waited for him to tell me the rest.

  ‘She thought he was going to give her a job. He had an Airline. A Travel Agency. A Casino. All in capital letters. So she thought she was going to go straight from Goa to Las Vegas. I told her I’ve seen this too often. It’s not so simple.’

  ‘So then why did she leave?’

  ‘No idea. You ask her. If you can ask her. She gave you that photograph. Or ask the other half of the photograph. That may be better.’

  He laughed again. His eyes twinkled. There was no remorse, no guilt. If he had deliberately forgotten his daughter, there was no way I could force him to remember her, or to even want her back.

  ‘What about your stash? Did Liza know about it?’ I don’t why I asked – perhaps it all seemed connected to her disappearance.

  Suddenly he started laughing so much that his eyes watered, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  ‘Stash, oh God, the stash. Fucking yes. She took it. She took it. You want some too? Everyone wants that stash. But it’s g-o-n-e. Gone.’

  He had become uncontrollable, speaking faster and louder.

  ‘And where did she go?’

  ‘She went back to London, of course.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Oh – about a year ago.’

  ‘And when did she come back?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Did she come back?’ I persisted.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  He seemed to have suddenly sobered up. The hysteria had gone.

  ‘Would you like some lunch? I’ve got some friends waiting for me.’

  Possibly feeling sorry for me and my unenviable quest for answers about Liza, he paused and added, ‘The short answer is, no. I’ve been looking for her because everyone is looking for her. Then I heard that she hadn’t gone to London, and she’s still around. But she never came back. Shit happens.’

  ‘You saw her last a year ago?’ I was still grappling with that information.

  ‘That’s right.’ He nodded peaceably, as though we were not discussing his daughter’s life, but the weather.

  ‘So then why is everyone looking for her now?’

  ‘Ask those goons, Joseph and Raman. They’re the big gremlins. They know everything. And I mean everything. They say she’s back. She sent someone an email. Then Marian says someone saw her around. Something like that. Marian has been looking for her as well.’

  ‘Not gremlins,’ I said. ‘I call them Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, that’s so apt for them. Apt.’

  ‘Do you have Liza’s email?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Not much use for Internet here, is it?’ he said grinning and pointing to the banyan tree. ‘Though I do get the occasional postcard. Snail-mail will do for me.’

  ‘And Marian’s address?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got a few questions to ask her.’

  ‘Sure.’ He took out a piece of paper from his pocket, scribbled on it and gave it to me.

  As I took it, he held on to my hand. ‘You know, I really like you. You seem so pure, so intense.’

  He gave me what could be considered a very deep look. Perhaps a thousand years ago, when he had just arrived in Goa, I might have been taken in. When he still had all his hair and all his teeth.

  I nodded. ‘You’re so pure too. As pure as Afghan opium.’

  Stanley laughed. ‘If you ever want to have fun, come to me, come to me.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Shall I escort you out of here?’ he said, standing up a little unsteadily. The loose pyjamas barely clung on to his hips, and the t-shirt, which left his belly button bare, seemed to be a child’s size. If he was any thinner nothing would have fitted him.

  ‘I must share a secret with you,’ he whispered, but there was no happy note in his voice. ‘Perhaps there is magic in this place, because once you are here, you can never leave. The gremlins can trap you, you know.’

  Pushing forward, battling the air, he walked ahead of me. Carefully putting one foot ahead of the other, he appeared to be negotiating a path he had walked for forty years, as though he was doing it for the first time.

  ‘Look out for the gremlins,’ he said every now and then.

  I followed closely behind, but my fear had disappeared.

  Saying goodbye to Stanley, I realized it was almost 2 o’clock, and began to walk back to meet Dennis, so we could have our long-awaited lunch. I couldn’t wait to discuss my encounter with Stanley him, and then rush off to Marian’s home.

  But halfway there, I checked my phone and found that I had a new message. Rushing along the beach, thinking it was from Marian, I opened it.

  It was certainly Marian. But not the way I thought I would see her. Or the way I wanted to see her.

  Chapter 13

  I stood on the beach unable to move. Then I sat down on the sand and called Dennis, asking him to meet me at the rocks which divided the two beaches.

  Because on my mobile phone was a shot of Marian falling onto those very rocks. It must have been late yesterday evening when it happened. After we had met for lunch.

  And after I thought I had saved her from Raman and Joseph.

  She was just a tiny figure in her trademark loose trousers, her long golden hair splayed against the evening sky as she tumbled down. It was too dark to tell if anyone had pushed her, but I knew it was her because the next shot showed her lying awkwardly, wedged amongst the rocks, dangerously near the water. She lay face down, her hair spread out, as the torchlight, possibly held by her assassin, flashed down on her. Blood streaked along the rocks and bloomed at the back of her head. She had probably been brutally hit and then thrown down. The scarf which she so often tied around her head drifted from the hand she had stretched out to break her fall.

  Poor, confused, vague Marian. Another statistic to be added to the growing numbers of ‘accidental deaths’.

  I put my head in my hands, trying to get over the shock.

  Then I realized that I must do something about this. I must get up and find her. If her body had not been discovered, she might be still lying there, pulled underwater, perhaps, by the waves that crashed roughly against the rocks.

  It was odd that no one had found her so far.

  Certainly Stanley had no i
dea about her accident.

  Around me, no one seemed perturbed or spoke about any unusual happening. Everything seemed so weirdly normal. Was it really possible for someone to have been murdered close by, and for the world to simply carry on, uncaring?

  There had been nothing in the national news this morning, or in the local Goan newspapers.

  ‘Madam, you okay?’ I looked up and saw Veeramma standing in front of me, looking curious. ‘You want massage for headache?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said and pushed myself to my feet.

  ‘You drugged?’ She looked at me with a strange half-smile.

  But I was so numb I couldn’t even smile back.

  ‘No, I’m okay.’

  As she continued to gaze upon me solicitously, I decided to abandon my earlier resolve about not mentioning Marian to her. After all, there was little that these wandering vendors did not know, as they moved from beach to beach, gathering gossip. And this was someone Veeramma took an avid interest in.

  ‘Have you seen Marian anywhere today?’

  Other vendors like her were peacefully going about their work. Tourists were crowding the shacks for lunch, while others were being browned in the sun. The edges of the sea were dotted with adults and children splashing into the water, and making sandcastles. And deeper into the ocean I could spot jet-skies skimming along the surface, while speedboats lifted parasailers high into the sky. There was colour and energy everywhere. But there was little sense of a life extinguished.

  Normally a death would have meant a higher police presence, cordons, questioning of the beach boys, shack owners, tourists and vendors. But there was no excitement of any kind anywhere. No visible fear or tension.

  As soon as I asked the question, I thought I saw a look of triumph flash across Veeramma’s face. It was gone so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it. My mind was already ravaged by hundreds of conspiracy theories, but I questioned whether this was why Veeramma was hovering around me? She wanted to enjoy the moment when I discovered that Marian was dead.

  ‘No, madam. You meet her today?’ she replied with a slight smile. It might have been her way of being nice to me, since I was obviously unwell, but even the smile appeared fake to me right now.