The Overnight Palace

by Janet Sola

  “Sahil, is this a good idea? Maybe you should just get this man’s insurance information and we can take a taxi.”

  “No taxi here,” he says, shaking his head. The fat man hustles me forward like one of the sheep. I can’t think of a reasonable alternative so I step into the back of the van and try to squeeze in by one of the women. She doesn’t move an inch to accommodate me. Six pairs of hostile eyes glare at me. The fat man closes the back doors, forcing me into the warm flesh next to me. We start moving. The woman across from me reaches out and gives me quick little jabs on my shoulder with her fingers. The woman next to me shoves her hip into mine. I think of pushing back, but I restrain myself. A headline runs through my mind: “American Woman Suffocated by Huffy Harem.” I imagine them being interviewed. “She was a no-good foreign whore, a bad loose woman, she got what was coming to her,” they would say.

  How amazing that, in the space of ten minutes, the day has turned from an idyll into a nightmare. Just when I think I can’t stand it any longer, the vehicle stops, the doors open, and the women, no longer holding back, take their hands out of the folds of their garments and shove me out in unison.

  When I regain my balance, I see we are not at a hospital. In fact, we are back in the little one-street town where we started earlier. Sahil hops into a hole-in-the-wall shop followed by the fat driver. A young policeman in a gray uniform is now on the scene. I just stand on the sidewalk and watch. They shout at each other for perhaps ten minutes. The policeman nods as he listens. The shopkeeper delivers cool drinks to everyone and the shouting goes on a bit more. Sahil shakes his shoe pathetically. The upper leather is now detached and the sole flaps up and down, like a reptile trying to talk. Finally, the fat man takes some money out of his wallet and hands it to the policeman, who keeps some and gives the rest to Sahil. With that, Sahil gets up, carrying his shoe, and hops toward me.

  I offer him my shoulder. He puts his weight on me. “You do not mind?” he asks. “I am sorry. This day is not good for you.

  “You should go to the hospital,” I say as we hobble together down the street.

  “We go back to Udaipur. There is a free hospital.”

  “Free! That man was a rich man. Rich enough to have six wives, or cousins or sisters or whatever. He must have insurance.”

  He laughs. “You do not understand India,” he says. “This rich man has friends who are police. We wait here for bus.” Sahil leans against a tree.

  “How much did he give you?” He pulls the notes out of his pocket and shows me. “That’s, what, twenty dollars?”

  “Half for police. Half for me.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “It’s OK. I am strong.” He doesn’t look strong at all. He looks forlorn, sad, and maybe badly injured. When the bus comes, he grabs my shoulder tightly as he heaves himself up.

  We sit near the front of the nearly empty bus. “I go for X-ray tomorrow, and when I come back, you go to this film with me. Stay one or two days more.”

  “I just don’t know. I am so sorry this happened. But I have a ticket. My friend is waiting.”

  “Do not worry about your friend. She waits for you in Delhi. Do not worry about your ticket. I talk to the man at the train station. You do not lose your money.” He winces in pain and grabs his foot. He is still holding his shoe.

  “I don’t care about the money.” I look at Sahil, and he looks so pathetic, my heart goes out to him.

  “I’ll stay.” As soon as I say that, it feels right. Somehow, in my anger at this stupid system of road hogs and payoffs and bullying that I’ve seen in the last hour, I feel a bond with him. When he leaned on me, when I supported his weight, I felt a simpatico that united us against the bad guys. And I think of what my train ticket had cost, about twice as much as he got for what might be a broken foot.

  “Ah, I am happy you stay. Even if my foot is broken, I am happy.” I realize that in the confusion our search for the master painter has been forgotten, but now does not seem like a good time to bring it up.

  I find Cathy in the courtyard under a string of yellow light bulbs around which tiny bugs are circling like worshippers around their guru. She’s entertaining a small circle of hotel guests with her story of her victory over the shopkeeper. As she talks, she makes great sweeps with her cigarette. When she does the shopkeeper part, she hunches her head down between her shoulders and shakes her fist.

  I signal to get her attention. “Cathy,” I whisper, “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  She keeps her head hunched down and continues with her performance. “I can’t come with you tonight,” I say.

  Her head pops back to its normal, long-necked, hair-swinging position. I pull her ticket out of my bag and hand it to her. “Here’s the ticket for Delhi I promised.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Actually, I’ve got to stay for a few days.” I pause.

  She looks at me suspiciously. “Right. It wouldn’t have anything to do with that kid from town?”

  “He’s not a kid, he’s a young man. Twenty . . .”

  She cuts me off. “I meant a kid from your perspective,” she says, unnecessarily drawing out the “your.”

  “Thanks, Cathy. In any case, how old he is has nothing to do with it.” Oh what the hell, I think. I tell her, more or less, what happened—about the afternoon, about the trip to the temples, about Sahil getting his foot run over.

  “Wow,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ve heard of plays for sympathy, but this takes the prize.”

  It takes me a moment to absorb what she’s saying. “What? Are you kidding?” I’m incredulous. “You’re telling me that he staged the entire operation? That he purposely put his foot under the wheel of a car? I can’t believe you’re saying that.”

  “I didn’t say anything. You said it.”

  Anger wells up and curls itself into a hard knot inside of me. “You know what. You’re the most cynical woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Yeah, OK, I apologize. You’re right. I’m a shriveled-up cynic. It comes from working all those years at the Enquirer.” She sighs. “Hey, I’ll give you my email.” She grabs a pencil at the desk and scribbles it down for me on a scrap of paper.

  “I think you owe me an apology.”

  “Look, I am sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” She bites her lip. “Maybe I’m pissed because you’re cancelling at the last minute. I hoped we’d be friends. I was really looking forward to doing Delhi with you.”

  She puts out her arms for a hug and I respond with my own arms. “I haven’t told the story I told you to anyone in a long time. You listened. You cared.” She feels so tall, so strong, so substantial, so blond. Yet I know she’s hurting inside.

  “I’ll be in Delhi for a while. Sincerely, I hope it works out for you.”

  “I just hope you can find a way to open your heart. For your own sake.” Then I realize this sounds holier-than-thou. “Forget I said that. Just good luck on your search for your grandfather.”

  “And good luck on your search for . . . whatever.”

  “The lost painting.”

  “Oh, right.”

  I can’t sleep at all. As I lie awake looking at the stars through the glassless opening that is my window, I remember the times Sahil and I touched, just two. The first, when he pressed the seed into my palm. The second, when he leaned his weight against my shoulder as we hobbled to the bus. The first sent filaments of electricity through me. But it is the second touch that is keeping me here.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Dinner and Movie Date

  The restaurant where I am to meet Sahil is just off the main square. There he is, standing on the street, hair combed back like a hipster, a lock falling forward over his forehead. His foot is bandaged and he’s on crutches. He waves one of them when he sees me. Standing next to him is a short boy with light brown hair. He looks about twelve.

  “They give me this at the hospital,” Sahil tells me, jiggling the cru
tch. Then he points it at his companion. “This is my friend Vijay. His birthday is today. He is twenty.”

  “Hello,” I say. He nods and we all stand there for a moment.

  “Vijay understands English, but he does not speak.”

  When Vijay tags along as we enter the restaurant, it becomes apparent that he is part of the evening. The room is dim; a dozen tables with red tablecloths stand empty. No waiter appears to seat us, so Sahil leads the way to a round table in the center of the room and we all sit down, a little awkwardly. The magic of the previous afternoon has disappeared. I feel like a chaperone. I have a sinking feeling that staying here was the wrong decision after all.

  “How is your foot?” I ask Sahil to break the silence.

  He reaches into a satchel and fishes out something black and rectangular—an X-ray. He holds it up to the light, the smoky film burned away to reveal a picture of the bones of his foot. “You see,” he says, pointing to the big toe. “Hairline fracture.” I can see the dark thread of a break that runs across the bone.

  “It looks bad. Does it hurt?”

  “Yes, but it is a small hurt. The doctor says I am very lucky I do not break my bones worse than this. Maybe six days—maybe six weeks for healing. But I am OK.”

  Vijay repeats “OK.”

  “I am happy you stay,” Sahil says to me.

  “I am too,” I say, although I don’t know if I’m being sincere or not.

  We leave the X-ray on the table, a kind of centerpiece, all through dinner. It looks like an ancient map of a strangely shaped archipelago, little islands of bone that connect to each other in a black sea.

  “Do you want a wine? I know Americans like wine very much with their dinners.” When I nod, Sahil signals to the waiter, and soon a sweating green bottle appears. Sahil elaborately pours some for each of us. The wine is cold and a little too sweet, but after a few swallows the room seems less gloomy. Dishes start appearing, a thali dinner consisting of many small plates, fragrant vegetable paneer, chicken smothered in ginger sauce and heaps of rice. Sahil looks over at me anxiously, asking if I like each dish.

  “Are you a painter as well, Vijay?” I ask Sahil’s friend.

  Vijay just looks at me. “He does not speak English,” Sahil says.

  “Sorry, I forgot.” Vijay smiles and eats, scooping up the rice and the sauce with his fingers even though this is a knife and fork restaurant. Suddenly, he stops eating, and points to a painting on the wall. It is large and vividly colored with reds and yellows, a picture of a group of men in traditional Indian finery at a table heaped with succulent looking dishes—the kind of picture that a restaurant manager would put on the wall to encourage people to eat as much as possible.

  Then Vijay points to Sahil, and murmurs something in Hindi.

  “Interpret for me,” I say to Sahil.

  “He says ‘this is my painting.’”

  “His painting?”

  “No, my painting.” Sahil touches his own white-shirted chest with his finger.

  “You did that?” I look at it again. It’s well done, but a bit commercial. “It’s impressive.”

  Sahil sighs. “Yes, the shop owner asks me to help him on this painting, but then he leaves me to finish. So I work very hard and then he comes and signs.” He makes a writing gesture in the air.

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes, this is the way in India.” He raises one eyebrow, gives me a half smile and shrugs in a what-can-you-do gesture. I’m beginning to see that maybe acceptance is a way of survival here. I think of my own job, and how many times I had slaved over a project only to have my boss take credit, with little or no acknowledgement. “Maybe this is the way of the world, sad to say.”

  “I do not care, because this painting is not for the soul, you know. It is only for the business. So in a way it is my painting, but in a way it is not my painting.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “Ah,” says Sahil, “I hope you stay to see my true paintings. But let us not talk of business things. This is a happy night. Chalo, we go to the movies.” I’m not sure what the protocol is but when I take out my purse to offer to contribute to the bill, he waves his hand in dismissal. When he hands over his money to the waiter, I wonder if that is the same money he collected from the accident.

  On the way to the movie theater, Sahil theatrically swings his crutches while he nods and smiles at people, many of whom nod and smile back. It’s dark now, and people are everywhere, mostly young people, young men walking and holding hands and young women with their arms around each other.

  Sahil already has tickets. We follow a queue into the back door of the theatre and then up a staircase littered with wrappers, papers and cigarette stubs. Sahil swings his leg wide at each step, supporting his weight on Vijay. “Are you sure this is a good idea when you’ve just been injured?” I ask him.

  “No worries,” he says and flicks his hand in a dismissive gesture. We emerge at a high balcony. Sahil winces and hops his way down a row of seats with cracked vinyl covers. We squeeze in, Sahil between me and Vijay. The seats are narrow and uncomfortable, but every one of them, both in the balcony and on the main floor, seems to be taken.

  The crowd is restless, even jubilant, the chattering of a thousand voices fills the room. Vijay giggles every so often. I notice that there are very few couples. The crowd is mostly made up of groups of young men and young women who give each other sly stares. Then it hits me. Of course, Indian men and women do not date, except perhaps a very elite Westernized crowd in the big urban cities like Delhi. I know that. So Sahil brought along Vijay as a kind of chaperone to make me feel comfortable, and maybe to make himself comfortable too, to avoid the stares of the people he knows. And it worked. Even though there are some idle glances in my direction, mostly people are absorbed in their own excitement and conversations. When I think about it, Sahil is taking me on an American style “dinner and a movie” date. I’m touched by his gesture.

  “I see this film four times,” he says. “I tell you the story so you understand because you do not speak Hindi. I like this story because the hero is very brave. He tells his father that he cannot do what his father says. I too am like this. My father tells me I must do what he says and work for his business.”

  “What is his business?” I ask.

  “He is a very rich man. He makes guns. He has a gun factory.”

  I don’t quite know what to do with this information. It seems incongruous in this country where ancient daggers on display behind glass in shops seem to be the latest thing. Then the screen lights up, the theater goes dark, the crowd goes silent. I don’t need sub-titles to understand what is going on, although every once in a while, Sahil leans over and whispers a comment in my ear.

  The plot is simple. An older man, who has fallen on hard times, goes with his beautiful daughter to stay in his wealthy friend’s house. The wealthy man’s son, a beefy and handsome sort, is attracted to the beautiful girl and a friendship forms. This is symbolized by the baseball hat he gives her, which she tries on as they burst into song together. When the girl and her father must leave to go back to their own house, the young people know it is love. This is portrayed by a white dove carrying a message from the boy to the girl. The scene ends with a giant close-up of the bird’s bloodshot eye, held for a very long time.

  After a dancing scene on the rooftop, where she kisses a glass door, and he kisses the lipstick mark she leaves, the boy decides to marry the girl. Because she is from a poor family, his father disapproves vehemently, and when the boy insists, disowns him. With no inheritance, the boy must go to work with a pick axe on a rock pile. But the girl is now by his side, handing him heavy rocks. They are both singing. It’s a moving scene in spite of the schmaltz, in the Gandhian spirit of the glorification of simple work. In the end, of course, the boy’s father recognizes the error of his ways and everyone is reconciled and lives happily ever after. The parents have learned a lesson in tolerance from their children. />
  Through it all is the crescendo of violins and the ticky rhythm that is Indian pop music. At one point, an over-excited fan gets up on his chair and starts jumping up and down. The entire bank of chairs starts to shake. I look at Sahil. He’s staring straight ahead, and so is everyone else. I’m the only one that even notices.

  When the lights come on we are again swept up with the crowd down the narrow stairwell and back into the street. “Do you like this movie?” Sahil asks me, as the three of us climb into a tuk-tuk taxi. Vijay sits beside us, very quiet and serious. I imagine he is thinking over the implications of the film.

  “I liked it very much,” I say, and it’s true. I love the innocence, the charm, the exuberance. It is so different from the cynicism, the jaded sophistication of the West. I’ve experienced something through someone else’s eyes, Sahil’s eyes, and the eyes of everyone in the audience.

  “I think someday my father can see he is wrong,” Sahil says, “the same as the father in the film.”

  Sahil says something to the taxi driver, and suddenly the film music pours into the warm night, accompanying us as we wind our way to the quiet, steep streets that lead up to my guesthouse. As the top of a curve, Sahil calls to the driver to stop. The lake appears beneath us, the ghostly white palace floating on its surface, the dark shapes of hills looming in the background. “Look,” he says and gestures toward the hill. I can barely see a fortress shaped building etched against the deep night sky.

  “I think I see a castle,” I say.

  “This is the Monsoon Palace. Long ago the maharaja and maharani go away from the city to this place when the rains come.”

  “To get away from the floods?”

  “They go to enjoy the wind and the rain. To be close to it. Tomorrow I take you there. We have a picnic as you say in English, and pretend it is the monsoon. If you want to go.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I will go.” It will be another perfect day, I think, like the day we had at the temple yesterday. But I wonder if he will bring Vijay along, who now seems to have dozed off.