“So why India?” he asked one night while polishing wine glasses.
She shrugged.
“But what do you do there? Apart from buying stuff to sell?”
“Nothing, everything. What do you do here? What do people do anywhere?”
“It’s not the same, this is my home.”
“People move. India feels like my home.” She stirred her fruity martini with her finger. “You should come with me,” she said, and he looked at her obliquely, smiling. “I’m serious. See for yourself what’s so amazing about it. Imagine what an experience that would be, being in a place where everyone looks like you.”
From the rooftop restaurant above the Krishna, New Delhi is bathed in amber smog. Square crowded roofs are punctuated by a few tall apartment buildings, and two round domes in the distance are a hazy mirage. On neighbouring roofs kids are flying kites. The sky is a thin golden sheet, the sun a cigarette-burn at its centre. Ian highlights the itinerary for the day in his guidebook, then puts down the pen. “It’s so hot.” He fans the menu in front of his face. “How do people live here?” He walks over and turns the standing fan toward them. “I can’t wait to get to the beach,” he says, lifting his shirt to balloon over the fan.
The rickshaw zips around Connaught Place, the driver’s torso leaning toward the centre of the roundabout, the other vehicles swirling like debris around a drain. Maya lights a cigarette and inhales. She likes riding rickshaws; there are no doors, no glass to separate them from the street. The city is in their faces, like a gust of hot air. At the traffic light, beggars shove skinny arms into the rickshaw. Maya gives one man her half-smoked cigarette and lights another one for herself.
By the time they reach the Red Fort, the heat sits over the city like a fat, sweaty Buddha. They walk through the fort, its red walls faded to pink by the sun. The corridors are thronged with groups of middle-aged Europeans, their faces shiny and wide with awe, camera-toting Japanese in bucket hats, and young backpackers, their flip-flops smacking the marble floors.
“Let’s eat. I’m starved,” Maya says as they walk out of the fort, pointing at a makeshift restaurant across the street: a few plastic tables and long wooden benches, huge industrial pots steaming under a tent. A tourist bus is parked outside and its passengers, middle-class Indian families, all wearing baseball caps and sneakers, are lined up on the benches.
“Here?” Ian follows her, stands behind her in line. He peeks into the pot, waving away flies.
The waiter places two large trays in front of them: small tin bowls circle a mound of rice, each filled with a different type of vegetable. A piece of steaming roti is folded in the corner of the tray. Maya gathers rice with her fingers and shoves it into her mouth with her thumb. Ian rips a piece of roti and dips it in his saag as if it were a biscuit in a cup of tea.
The bus starts honking and the passengers board. A young Indian couple in jeans and T-shirts eyes them and smiles. Maya smiles back. They must think Ian and Maya are just like them.
They take a rickshaw to the Chandni Chowk bazaar: tangled wires, chains of coloured bulbs and large banners hanging between dilapidated buildings. The heat is at its peak and everything smells stronger, ripened. As soon as they step out of the rickshaw, people brush against them, push them, touch them. Porters carrying canvas sacks of fragrant spices shove their way through; their dark, bony legs poke out of their lungis. Ian and Maya turn into an arched alleyway and beggars latch on to them. Ian is hugging his camera like it might leap from his chest. A barefoot child wheels a man with no limbs on a plywood board past them. A blind woman, her eyes excavated, waves flies away from her listless baby. Another woman’s nose seems to be eaten away by leprosy. A little girl with an amputated arm tugs on Ian’s sleeve. Ian dispenses rupees at a panicky pace.
“Bas,” Maya yells at a young woman who has been following her from the moment they turned down the alleyway. The woman twists her face in a pitiful expression, pointing at her mouth, at the toddler she’s carrying, his hair matted, his eyes lined with kohl. Ian stuffs a rupee note into her hand.
By the time they make it to the Jama Masjid, Ian seems exhausted. They sit on the red sandstone stairs leading to the mosque, drinking chilled Fantas next to a group of young, fully veiled Muslim women. Ian massages the bridge of his nose.
“Headache?” she says.
“Just tired.” He looks at her. “You’ve been there before. Couldn’t you have warned me?”
She ignores the accusing tone. “It will get easier, you’ll see.” She thinks of her first time in this bazaar. She was mesmerized by it; she’d bought fabric and strappy sandals, sampled food from street vendors, walked until her feet blistered.
He takes a sip from his Fanta, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and rolls his head from side to side until she hears a faint crack. “How about we stay somewhere nice in Jaipur?” He glances at her sideways, smiling. “I wouldn’t mind having a real toilet.”
The train to Jaipur is air conditioned and a lot fancier than the second-class sleeper she usually takes. As the train chugs through the slums on the outskirts of Delhi—decrepit structures made of corrugated iron and patched up with plastic and cloth—Ian snaps photos: a young woman shaking a yellow sari to dry; kids skipping over rocks, chasing the train; three men crouching to shit along the tracks, one of them waving.
The hotel Ian picked has rooms arranged around a stone-paved courtyard with wicker chairs and flowerpots. As they walk to their room, chatting about their plans for the day, they pass a group of backpackers, three boys and a girl, arguing loudly with one of the workers. “Babu,” one of them says in a strong Israeli accent, towering over the much shorter Indian man. “You say two hundred rupee, no? Two people, four people, no difference.” She walks straight ahead, pretending not to hear or see them, until they reach their door and she glances over her shoulder. One of them, a curly-haired boy with a tribal armband tattoo catches her gaze and smiles. Maya looks away.
They spend the afternoon sightseeing in Jaipur. It’s a city Maya knows well, where she buys most of the silver jewellery she sells. In the evening, they walk into a restaurant Ian selects from the travel guide. It has dimmed lighting, an ancient air conditioning unit dripping into a plastic bowl at the entrance, a CD player playing old movie tunes. There is only one other couple in the restaurant, older and white, with sparse grey hair, wearing matching Bermuda shorts and pale buttoned-up shirts.
“Expensive,” Maya whispers to Ian as the waiter leads them to a table covered with a maroon tablecloth and hands them laminated menus in padded folders.
He waves his hand. “I’m from London.” He sits back in his chair, legs spread, flipping quickly through the menu. “I’m having tandoori chicken.” He snaps the menu shut.
Maya raises her eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t trust the meat in India.”
“Fuck it.” He grins. “You only live once.”
He orders too much food: samosas, pakoras, a basket of naan, an assortment of chutneys. When the large Kingfisher beer arrives, he pours some into each of their glasses, sips from it, licks froth off his lip and sighs. “Starting to feel human again,” he says, stretching his arm across the table and grabbing her hand. In this restaurant, at this moment, he looks like the man she remembers from London. After three beers he slips his foot out from his flip-flop, reaches under her skirt and strokes the side of her thigh with his toes. She stiffens. The older couple are busy eating. The waiter is nowhere to be seen. She swallows and moistens her lips. He hasn’t been that bold since the first night. In fact, they haven’t been having as much sex as she thought, or hoped, they would.
“You’re bad.” She lowers her chin, shuffles down in her seat so that his foot is resting on the crotch of her underwear.
He wiggles his toes.
“Screw dessert,” she says. “Let’s go back to the room.”
“Holy shit.” He straightens in his seat, his foot sliding down. “Did you see that? I just saw the hugest
rat. Right there, across the beam.”
She sighs and sips her beer.
“Did you see it?” His eyes are focused up, his jaw slightly dropped. “I swear it was the size of my forearm.”
She shrugs. “They’re everywhere. They’re like cows.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. When the bill comes he slips a credit card to the waiter, and Maya adds the bill up in her head and thinks of how many days she could have lived in India on that amount of money.
She flags a rickshaw outside the restaurant. “Raj Hotel.”
“Forty rupees.” The driver doesn’t look at her. His oily hair is hennaed red and brushed over to one side. He sucks on his bidi.
She scoffs. “Fifteen.”
The driver flicks his bidi onto the gravel and stares straight ahead.
“It’s fine,” Ian says. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“Twenty,” she says.
“Forty.”
“Pagal.” She twirls her index finger at her temple and begins to walk away. Ian climbs in.
She stops and turns to him. “I can’t bargain if you’re already sitting there.”
He sighs. “God, just let it go.”
She puffs out her cheeks, letting out a deep breath. She climbs into the rickshaw and sits perched at the edge of her seat, looking out and smoking.
In the hotel room Ian lies on the bed and watches her as she undresses, his head propped against the headboard. “You realize you were bargaining for the equivalent of less than a pound.”
“It’s not about that.” She takes off her shirt. “It’s how it works here. They expect you to bargain. Didn’t you read about it in your guidebook?”
“Well, you didn’t have to talk to him like that.”
“Like how? It’s called negotiating.”
“I don’t know. You seemed a little harsh.”
“I’m Israeli, this is how we talk.” She takes off her small hoop earrings and places them on the shelf.
He shakes his head, picks up his guidebook from the bedside table.
“What?” she says. “You guys are just as patronizing as Israelis. We’re just more direct about it.”
“I’m Indian,” Ian says.
“I’m more Indian than you are,” she says and immediately regrets it.
“Wow.” He raises his hands.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean that.”
He puts on his headphones and turns his back to her. She watches him shutting down, pulling the blinds over.
The courtyard is lit with lanterns, swarming with dark clouds of bugs. She crosses the street to pick up another pack of Gold Flakes and, as she pays the clerk, hears laughter and talking from the back of the store. Without thinking, she follows the sounds to a small garden restaurant with backpackers sitting around candlelit tables. She orders a Kingfisher, unwraps the plastic off her package of Gold Flakes and glances at the table next to her. The Israeli group from this afternoon.
“Achi,” the guy with the short army cut tells the curly-haired man. Achi. Brother. “If you’re in Manali, you should go to Kullu and Parvati Valley. The best charas you’ll ever taste.”
“It’s true. I was there in the spring,” she offers in Hebrew. The language feels new and clunky in her mouth. When was the last time she used it?
“You were?” Curly hair eyes her; he’s wearing faded Thai pants and a sleeveless shirt, a large woven necklace with a turquoise stone around his neck. “Second time in India?” he says, passing her a joint.
She sucks in the sweet, smooth smoke. “Fourth actually.”
He whistles, slides into the chair opposite hers. “Omer,” he says.
“Maya.”
A waiter carrying a tray with four lassis stops by their table. The three guys each take one. The girl says, “No fucking way. After last time?” She blows a large bubble with her gum and sucks it back in.
The waiter hovers.
“Maybe Maya wants it?” Omer says. “Bhang lassi?”
She looks at the tray. She’s already stoned, still holding the joint Omer passed her. “Why not.” She takes a long sip. Banana, yogurt and hash. Omer watches her. She’d forgotten how intense Israeli men can be. “You stay at our hotel,” he says. “That guy, he’s your boyfriend?” Or how direct.
“Yes,” she says.
“Oh, you’re one of those.”
“One of what?”
“What is he, British?”
“He’s half Indian.”
“British guys, they’re like refrigerators,” the girl volunteers and the guys howl with laughter. “I dated one in Israel. No passion. They’re not like our boys. Now I could never date a guy who isn’t Israeli.”
“You mean, not arrogant and obnoxious?” Maya says.
The girl stares at her, her mouth slightly open. Omer laughs. “Well, maybe Maya loves him. Right?”
“Right,” she says.
“That’s what’s important. Love.”
The courtyard is covered in soft Cellophane. The lights turn dimmer, but the sounds crystallize, spoons hitting glass, a man’s laughter, cars honking from the main road. She sinks into her chair, comfortable, content, resigned to staying awhile. Maybe she should bring Ian here tomorrow evening for a bhang lassi. It would loosen him up a bit. The guys and the girl get into a heated argument. Something about Palestinians. Or Lebanon. Or maybe some Israeli reality show Maya doesn’t know. The girl keeps yelling, “No, no, no,” half-rising from her chair and leaning over the table. They are the loudest table in the restaurant. People at other tables keep glancing at them. Omer lights a Winston and holds the package open in front of Maya. She takes one and he strikes a match. She leans over. Too close. Her cigarette hits his hand. His face is long and oval, his features sharp, like a fox.
“So how long have you been travelling?”
“About three years.” She leans back and inhales deeply. She’s missed American cigarettes. She’s missed cigarettes that don’t taste like sand.
“Ahhh, that explains it.” Omer blows out smoke.
“Explains what?”
“It fucks you up, not having a home for that long.”
Maya smiles with her mouth closed.
“You travelled all this time with your boyfriend?”
“No, he just got here.” She peels the label off her beer bottle and eyes him, considering how much to share. “He hates it.”
“I thought you said he was Indian.”
For some reason this makes her laugh, and then she can’t stop. Omer joins in. They laugh for a long time, and her eyes are tearing up.
“Well, guess he doesn’t belong here any more than we do,” Omer finally says. “It’s like you going back to … what are you, Yemeni?”
She nods and shuffles in her chair, annoyed that he places her in the same category as him, with all of them, as if she’s just another one of those backpackers who come here for a few months after army service and then return to their real homes, start university, rent an apartment in Tel Aviv, hang a series of stylized photographs of barefoot Indian children on their living room walls, cover their mattresses with Rajasthani mirror-studded bedspreads. When the waiter walks by, Maya waves at him and orders another Kingfisher in Hindi.
Omer takes a swig from his beer and stares at her in a new way. “You speak Hindi.”
“A little bit.”
“Do people think you’re Indian?”
“Sometimes.”
“Bet you love it.”
She shrugs, takes a long sip from her beer.
“So what’s your story? What are you running away from?”
She frowns. “Isn’t it what we’re all doing? Running away from everything back home?”
“Yeah, but that’s a long time to be running away,” he says. “I’m going back next month.”
She looks around and realizes the restaurant is almost empty. The lights are off. The candle on their table is flickering, dying out. When did everyone els
e leave? She feels a pang of fear and exhilaration, a thrilling sense of dread, like her first day in the army, her first day in New Delhi. She swallows. “I’m really stoned,” she says. She realizes she’s been staring at his lips; they’re full and dark purple, as if bruised.
“You okay?” Omer leans over the table and gives her a warm, caring look. She thinks of her mother, of the last time she saw her, the day before she flew to India. It was Saturday morning, her father was at the synagogue, they ate kubaneh her mother had baked overnight with spicy, lemony hilbe; dipped a brown, hard-boiled egg in grated tomatoes mixed with green schug, speckled with red chilies. The sweet smell of kubaneh stayed in Maya’s hair, the oil in her fingers, the tang of fenugreek oozing from her sweat throughout the next day, on her flight here.
“Hello. Earth to Maya,” Omer says. “You okay? Do you want me to get you coffee? Water? Anything?”
“I’m fine.” She looks at her hand and sees that she’s holding a filter with perfectly formed cigarette-shaped ash. She jerks and the ash crumbles and falls off.
Omer leans forward, offers her his hand, palm up, across the table. He examines her, eyes narrowed.
“No, really,” she says, and she places her hand on his. “I’m okay.”
He looks down at their hands; they lay on top of each other cupped, as though holding something fragile. He swallows, his Adam’s apple retreating and bulging.
“So …” he says. “I bought an Enfield in New Delhi and rode it here.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You should come with me. To the Himalayas.”
She laughs.
“I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Very funny.”
“You know you want to.”
A sudden alarm goes off inside her head. She glances at the clock. It’s past 2:00 a.m. “I have to go.” She pulls her hand away, palm moist, stands up too quickly, dropping her smokes. She tries putting money on the table, but Omer puts his hand on hers and says, “It’s on me.” She doesn’t argue. She crosses the street, half running, slows down as she reaches the gate. The hotel is dark, the courtyard empty. She hears steps behind her and her heart begins to pound. Omer catches up to her in the corridor. He pushes her gently against a wall. His breath is hot, sweet from charas, banana, Kingfisher beer. “Hey,” he says.
The Best Place on Earth Page 15
