She Will Build Him a City

by Raj Kamal Jha

  I am done, Taxi Driver says, to which he says, no, stay inside for at least half an hour, I will clean all of you today. Bend, sit, spread your legs, soap the inside of your thighs with this blue shower gel, he says as he pours shampoo and conditioner, bottle after bottle, counts a dozen in all, down Taxi Driver’s head, chest, back, penis, pubic hair, armpits until the drain clogs with hair and dirt, water backs up.

  Pick it up, he says, we will flush it down the toilet.

  It’s done now, says Taxi Driver, I am cleaner than clean, this is like when I was born.

  No, not done yet, he says, just stand there underneath the shower and let the water run, run, run; run for ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty minutes, there is no hurry, let it run uninterrupted over your head down the neck, shoulders, chest, back, legs, toes, turn around, let the water run down your face, open your mouth, let it clean there as well, and then shave. You know how to shave, don’t you?

  Yes, sir.

  Here, take this razor and soap and shave yourself clean.

  Yes, perfect, it looks very good, it looks very neat, now let the water run again, there are flecks of soap under your ears, let the water wash them away and while the water runs, look through the glass wall, the glass floor, look down at the highway, at the cars, their lights, look at New City, how beautiful it is, have you ever seen something like this?

  No, sir, never.

  So keep looking, he says, look up at the stars and the moon, if you are lucky you may even see an aeroplane flying. And when the people in the plane look down, they will not be able to see you because the glass will be fogged, they may see your shape, like a little animal kept in fluid in a jar. Taxi Driver doesn’t understand this, he only smiles, his eyes closed, water running down his face, hot, cold, red, blue.

  He makes him shave a second time, brush his teeth, wash himself all over again.

  Until Taxi Driver begins to tremble.

  ~

  No, I don’t want to eat anything, sir, I already had dinner, no, I don’t want to drink, I am on duty, but if you insist, sir, I can, anything you give me, favourite? No, no, nothing like that, sir, whatever I can afford, there isn’t much to spend at the end of the month, some nights we drink, OK, very nice of you, sir, to bring me here, to give me this, yes, some ice will be nice.

  First drink.

  I am married, sir, I have a wife and one child, she is three years old, yes, yes, that’s why I brought them here from the village so that I can send her to school, not now, she is very young, but yes, in a year or so, there is a school near where we live. Yes, sir, you said the right thing, daughter has to go to school, she has to study, she has to work. I can’t go home during the week, I meet them only on Sundays.

  Second drink.

  If you insist, sir, I can have some rice and dal, nothing else, do they have that here, thank you, that was very nice, sir, how about you, you are not eating anything, you are not drinking anything, this is the first time I am in a room in such a big hotel, if you hadn’t brought me here, I would never have seen all this. There are so many lights here, this is like a cinema hall, sir.

  Third drink.

  Balloon Girl is in the room, she has floated in through the crack in the window, she is up on the ceiling, looking down at both of them.

  Fourth drink.

  Last night? Yes, yes, now that you say it, sir, I remember, I remember last night. Yes, you were there, I dropped you off, sir, with that girl and the woman, both were your maids, and then I went home. No, no one came to me today, no one has come asking me anything, you were the only one who came just when my night shift began. No more drinks, sir, I am all right, no more, I have had four, I think, they are checking now at the entrance to the highway, the police stand there with these new machines and they ask us to blow into them. They have someone standing there with a camera. I don’t want my licence taken away, sir, that’s the only thing I have. I will have to pick up my taxi and return to the stand but if there is some place you wish to go to, please tell me, we can go there. You will drive me back? Why, sir, why take so much trouble? Where have I been since last night? Sir, I dropped you off and then returned to the taxi stand and found a customer who had to be dropped off at the international airport and then I just stayed there, picked up a passenger who had to go to Faridabad, and I have been on the road ever since. News? What news, sir? No, I haven’t heard anything. Do I remember her face? No, sir, it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. No, I have not seen them, neither mother nor child.

  ~

  Sir, no, why are you doing this to me? Let me go, please, let me go, I don’t need anything, I don’t need the money, I don’t know what I have done wrong. Tell me, sir, you don’t tell me anything. You bring me here, you ask me to take a bath, you feed me, I will leave just now, on my own, no one will know that I came to your room. No, I don’t remember anything from last night, I don’t know why you keep asking me that, sir, no, I don’t recall who they were, you told me they were your maids and they had missed the last Metro train and you were picking them up. That’s all I know.

  ~

  And Taxi Driver, smelling of shower gel and warm towels, single malt and shampoo, clean and fresh from head to toe, his hair soft to the touch, his face shaved smooth, is no more.

  Minimum spray, minimum spatter.

  He will leave the body in the hallway, slumped against the elevator, let them figure out where it came from. The last witness is gone, he has no reason to worry any more, he will now return home to Apartment Complex.

  Thank you, Balloon Girl, for everything, he says, and looks up at the ceiling but she isn’t there.

  CHILD

  Cinema School

  Ms Violets Rose carries Orphan, walks with him, speaking as if she’s reading from a book.

  ~

  ‘A cinema theatre isn’t like any house at all. It’s a very strange, very unusual place for a child to have his home. There’s no bedroom, no living room, no dining room. There is no kitchen, no bathroom, too. Not to speak of a child’s room. No bunk beds, no stickers on the window, no posters on the wall. Of either mice or funny men.

  ‘There are only chairs and chairs, there is a stage and there is a screen. And at the back, high up, looking as if it’s suspended in air in the dark, is the projection room, the inside of which no one can see except us. Many machines are kept here: the projector which makes the film move and shines light through it, sometimes it gets so hot that you have to wear gloves to take the film off it. Then there are machines to regulate the sound and the lights in the theatre. There is a bench fixed to the floor where the projectionist changes the reels, every nineteen minutes for most films these days, by staining the top right-hand corner of the film with a white line that no one in the audience can make out. That line marks the place where the reel changes.

  ‘The projection room has a long, narrow window, very similar to the one you have in a train. This window is made of special glass through which the image, riding on a beam of light, travels from moving film to the screen.’

  ~

  More than the machines, though, the first thing that Orphan has to learn, to live in Europa, is how to cope with the constant dark, just the opposite of what a child his age is conditioned to learn. How much of Little House Orphan remembers is hard to tell: does he remember the light streaming in through the big windows in his bedroom? Or the colours of the sky, their brightness, their shade, to which Kalyani points when she tells him the story of the little cloud that brought a child? Because, from Europa, it’s hard, almost impossible, to see the sky. It’s sealed, soundproof, its four doors are all closed most of the time, marked by ‘Exit’ signs glowing in small red rectangles. There are several sources of light in Europa but they all work to heighten rather than banish darkness: the lights on the ceiling, in exactly a dozen rows, twenty in each row, like stars in the night sky. Switched on when people begin to walk into the theatre to take their seats before the movie. Dimmed to darkness when the curtains part. The bri
ghtest lights are those right above the screen. These are the stage lights, sixteen in all, but these are switched off, too, when the movie is on. They light up only during the interval, if there is one.

  The only lights that are always kept switched on are the tiny ones, each one green in colour, fixed on the side of the last chairs in each row, to the left and to the right. These lamps show where each row is so that you can reach your seat in the dark. Ms Rose has spent such a long time in Europa that she can walk to any seat eyes closed. All it takes for her to adjust to light and dark is a blink of her eye. But she knows that Orphan, little more than a baby, is still learning how to walk, even the muscles of his eyes are still forming, he still sees blurred shapes.

  ~

  So Ms Rose is his teacher.

  First, she makes him walk between two rows of seats, getting him to use his hands for support and balance. Once Orphan gets tired after a couple of such trips, she lifts him up, carries him around, shows him the other corners in the theatre: the room in the wings behind the curtains where they keep all the cleaning equipment. Or the giant speakers behind the screen, spiders’ cobwebs behind each. She gets him to walk up and down the steps. Once, holding the armrests of the chairs.Then, holding the railing that runs along the wall. Most surfaces in the theatre, because they have to absorb light and sound, are made of soft material: the steps are covered with carpeting, rich and red; the walls are padded, cushioned with black. All this helps Orphan because when he stumbles and falls – and he does stumble and fall a lot as he navigates his way between the seats – he doesn’t hurt himself.

  Let him trip, Ms Rose tells herself, he will have no major injuries, that’s the only way he will learn.

  So right through the morning, before the first show begins, she sits in her corner while Orphan goes up and down, right and left.

  From one seat to the other, moving closer to the screen until he stops right at the edge of the stage.

  ~

  Along with walking, Orphan begins learning the alphabet and numbers, too.

  As his steps get more steady, Ms Rose begins to walk with him, pointing out the letter at the end of each row of seats, each one glowing in the dark. And when the overhead lights are switched on, she shows him the numbers on the seats, each a piece of shining plastic embossed in the upholstery. She holds Orphan’s hand and runs his little fingers over each number so that he gets its shape as well.

  Orphan will learn fast, she is sure of that. It’s just a matter of time, she thinks, before she tells him the seat number and he finds the way to it on his own.

  ~

  One morning, shortly before the beginning of the first show, after the seats have been cleaned, the floor and the aisles swept – the two janitors who vacuum the carpet every alternate day don’t even notice Ms Rose or Orphan in the dark – Ms Rose climbs up onto the stage with Orphan, takes him right to the screen that’s bathed in light from the four overheads.

  She makes him touch the screen’s white vinyl. She shows him how each square inch of the screen is dotted with tiny holes for the air to pass through from the speakers placed behind the screen. She shows him the red curtains, the black frames that move up or down, left or right, depending on the size of the film, its aspect ratio.

  She leans into Orphan, lowers her lips to his ears, and whispers, ‘There is something else I will show you. It will be our secret and it will be magic.’

  And Ms Violets Rose smiles as she kisses Orphan on the tip of his nose. It tickles, it makes him laugh – his face bathed in light on the stage against the screen.

  WOMAN

  Photo Album

  After that incident in the taxi, he becomes my secret.

  So we meet when you are in school, this is when the city is not as generous as it is today, when it opens very few spaces for couples like us, closes very few eyes. Forcing us to meet in places, hurried and furtive, where we know no one will recognise us, between my classes in school, at a bus stop midway from his college to our home, sometimes a platform at the railway station, once even the waiting area of a hospital, on a bench, between waiting patients. We steal twenty minutes, half an hour to exchange words, to look at each other, sometimes let our hands brush so that we can return to our respective homes, assured that each of us is there for the other, that neither of us has slipped off the face of this earth.

  ~

  ‘How is she doing?’ he calls and asks me.

  ‘She’s sleeping,’ I say.

  ‘So long?’

  ‘Yes. Or maybe she’s awake, I don’t know, I can’t tell.’

  ‘Hasn’t it been almost ten hours since she arrived?’

  ‘More than twelve, in fact.’

  ‘Did she eat something?’

  ‘No, nothing, she’s locked herself in.’

  ‘Just like her.’

  ‘Yes. She hasn’t changed . . . except.’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘She looks very tired. Her face is just as beautiful as I remember, except that someone has added many lines to it. There are marks, too. She’s been hurt, maybe even beaten up. I see marks and smudges. I think she has been crying a lot. Or maybe it’s dust from the journey.’

  ‘On the way home, did she say anything?’

  ‘Nothing, she kept her eyes closed all the way in the taxi.’

  ‘Let her be. Let’s wait for her to wake up.’

  ‘That’s what I have been doing all these years. Waiting, and now that she’s here, I guess I don’t wish to wait any more.’

  ‘Be patient, she is with you now, she is in the same house.’

  ‘Of course, but it doesn’t feel like it. She is really holding me to that condition which she made me accept. No questions, Ma, she said, don’t ask me anything. Otherwise, I am not coming.’

  ‘So, don’t. Don’t ask her anything. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Easier for you to say because you are not here right now.’

  ‘She will come round. Let her stay in the room as long as she wishes. She will have to get up, she will need to speak.’

  ‘I don’t like this, sitting here, waiting for her.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know what worries me most? I don’t even know if she’s ill or something.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just looking at her, she is like a shadow, so thin, when I touched her hands, they were cold as if she had washed them in water with ice.’

  ‘You want me to come over?’

  ‘No, not now, don’t. She isn’t ready yet.’

  ~

  So busy am I in keeping my secret that I let you keep yours as well, let you drift away from me until you are too far out into the sky that opens between us, in which, once in a while, we pass each other like clouds.

  Like the day I discover your first bloodstains on the bed.

  Or the morning your teacher tells me you are way behind the rest in class, that you are always distracted, that you have­n’t even been coming to school.

  When I ask you where you have been, all I hear is silence. When I insist on an answer, you say, why don’t you tell me where you have been and with whom.

  ~

  He calls again: ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

  ‘I don’t feel like eating when she hasn’t,’ I tell him.

  ‘You have been sitting alone all this while?’

  ‘What else will I do?’

  ‘You should eat something, catch some sleep.’

  ‘What if she wakes up in the middle of the night?’

  ‘It is the middle of the night.’

  ‘She doesn’t even know her way around the house.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I don’t want her worrying when she wakes up.’

  ‘Not to worry, just relax. She’s a grown-up woman, she will find her way around the house. You are a light sleeper, if she opens her door I am sure that will wake you up.’

  ‘It’s just a few hours before morning. Le
t me stay awake.’

  ~

  There is one evening when it’s almost perfect. When I am the mother, you are the child. A few weeks after you turn nineteen. We are at home, right through the day there are reports of violence in the city, of homes having been set ablaze. There is curfew outside, draping the entire neighbourhood in a silence unfamiliar for so early in the day. It’s December, freezing inside the house, and I have to switch on the electric heater. What comes back to me, of that night, at the remove of all these years, is that I am sitting in the living room with my school work. It’s exam time so I am either working on a question paper or marking answer sheets. You walk in carrying a photo album which, you say, you found in your room, fallen in the gap between the books and the back of the cupboard. Most of the pictures in it have come unstuck, you say, we need to fix them back. You carry a glue stick I got from school.

  I am not sure why but I put all my school work aside and I say, yes.

  You are right, the album is in a mess.

  The next three hours, four hours we sit together, we glue the pictures back.

  Black and white.

  Pictures of your father and me in the city, standing outside his college, outside my school.

  Of you on your first birthday, in your school uniform waiting at the bus stop.

  You and me with a suitcase at the railway station, you at the school sports day, you and your father on the Ferris wheel. There is a picture of your father giving a speech at what looks like a college function.

  Ma, why are there so few pictures after Papa died, why did we stop taking pictures, you ask. And I don’t have a proper answer. Papa is the one who took the pictures, is all I can say, and he’s gone. Where is the camera, you ask.

  I tell you we have to look for it, maybe it’s not working.

  We will look for it first thing in the morning, you say, I want to take some pictures of you, of us, of the street outside under curfew. But, Ma, tell me about these pictures, you say.