And then I grew the beard.
It worked wonders. Sporting no more than five days straggly growth, I went to yet another party, met Joanne, and fell in love. When, after three months of sleeping in the same bed, having made only the briefest and most tentative explorations of each other’s bodies, we finally decided to do it, I was somewhat distressed to find the focus of my attention in such an inaccessible location. The biology books had made no mention of this. Don’t get me wrong; I knew what I had to do and where I had to do it; I just hadn’t expected it to be so tricky.
After three or four breathless attempts, and just before I was about to give up for good, what I later discovered was termed “intromission” was achieved. You’d have thought, from the look on my face for the next two weeks, that like some great, intrepid explorer delving into unmapped territory, I had single-handedly discovered sex.
It was the start, as they say, of something big.
Joanne remained my sole partner during the next two years, and when we finally split up just before gradua- tion, it was not with any great sadness. Although we were still only children, we had outgrown each other. Joanne had chosen a profession to follow, whilst I had set my sights on conquering the world, or at least, travelling all over it. Our two paths diverged at that point, and would never again cross over.
***
I was, therefore, unattached when I arrived in New Delhi, eager for new experience and, having not had sex for several months, horny as hell.
I arrived at Sunny’s Guest House, a perfectly acceptable dive in New Delhi, booked into a room and fell into a comatose collapse for five hours. Revived thereafter by an invigorating cold shower and precarious excursion to the squat bog, I sat in the open rooftop courtyard and soon found myself deep in conversation with fellow travellers.
This was what it was all about: the “where have you been, where are you going” exchanges, the shared horror stories of life on the road. I drank tea, chatted amiably, tried to remember snippets of advice as they were thrown around the rooftop like volleyballs and thought: that didn’t take long; already I feel at home.
I was wrong, of course.
Two hours later, wanting to soak up a little atmosphere, I made my way to the old city. How was I to know that this was asking for trouble? Old Delhi was to be my first experience of the real Asia. Jetlagged, excited, I was not suitably prepared.
Dusk fell. I found myself walking nervously down the claustrophobically crowded alleyways side-stepping rickshaws, goats, cows, filth, dirt and chaos, carcasses crawling with flies, rotten fruit, rancid butter, red-streaked bones on splintered wooden trestles, green parrots crammed into rusted cages. And wall-to-wall people: crying, running, screaming.
Thick clouds of steam billowed into the twilight shadows, the over-powering odours of spices, meat, shit and piss suffocated me, my vision assaulted by excess, my conscience stabbed by the sight of scabrous lepers and limbless beggars. No space, no freedom, no release, a seething mass living a life of unimaginable squalor.
Holding my breath, squinting against the horror, shoved from every side at every pace, I dragged myself through this insanity for three hours. Put this many Europeans together in such a space and there’d be rioting, murder. Yet in the lee of the Friday mosque it all functioned like a surrealistic ballet, each move choreographed to mesh in with every other.
But it was too much for me; something cracked inside and I had to get out. I began to wonder what I had let myself in for. This was not my vision of India, a vision composed of tranquil views of the Taj Mahal, majestic sightings of palaces and forts.
It was an equally terrifying journey back to New Delhi in the pitch black rush-hour on the back of an eight-seater Tempo, a tin can mated with an old Harley Davidson that crashed and weaved through the manic traffic, a near collision with a car, and near extinction between truck and bus. And my eyes-nose-hair full of exhaust and grime, catching in the throat, sealing the nostrils.
I was nervous. I thought, I’ve only just arrived and this could be my last ride. I couldn’t wait to get back to the guest house, an oasis of calm in this Sodom of a city.
It took three weeks to acclimatise to India, my feelings, throughout, ambivalent. Sometimes I would wake in the morning, wanting nothing other than to be home, away from the madness, safe and secure among family and friends. By the evening of the same day, having experienced yet another facet of that extraordinary country, I would decide that I would stay for ever.
It was in this frame of mind that I arrived in the lake city of Udaipur in the desert state of Rajasthan.
Chapter 3
‘Make love to me.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Come on, make love to me.’
‘Give me a break...’
‘Why don’t you want to make love to me? I’m pretty, aren’t I? I’ve got big tits and long legs...’
‘Liana, please...’
‘I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why you won’t make love to me. Because I’m not a bimbo, that’s why. Because you know I’ll never fall for your clever lies. Because I’ll never scream your name and tell you I love you...’
‘Leave me alone, Liana. I’m trying to work.’
‘You know what your problem is, don’t you Michael?’
Yes Liana, I do. My problem is you. My problem is that you have turned my life from paradise to purgatory. My problem is that I can’t get rid of you. My problem is that I hate what you do, but love who you are. Or were. Which probably makes me as crazy as you.
‘Don’t ever say it. Don’t ever tell me that you love me.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘Do you understand? Never. If you ever say it, I’ll kill you. I’ll take a knife and stick it between your ribs. I’ll cut your balls off. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Transparently so.’
‘Don’t be smart with me you bastard.’
‘Liana! Enough!’
‘Don’t shout at me! Who the fuck do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think you are?’
I stopped writing, pushed the chair back from the desk, turned round and ducked just in time to avoid having my face remodelled by a flying glass paperweight. The paperweight slammed into the wall behind me, but for some reason did not shatter.
Liana was standing on the other side of the room, her body turned away from me, her hands shaking. She was staring intently at the floor. She bit down on her lower lip and I sat there, paralysed, knowing what would happen next. No words would help now.
She struggled to maintain control, to stop the tears, her entire body contorting in ugly spasms, as if she were indeed possessed. I saw the agony in her eyes, watched helplessly as her lower lip started to quiver, every muscle straining to keep from crying.
Then all at once, her face became crumpled like a used paper bag, and an unholy, demented howl, drawn up from God-knows-where, filled the room.
I went over and put my arms around her. She didn’t push me away but buried her face in the folds of my shirt, as if trying to burrow into my chest. She wept for an hour, barely making a sound, and it was all I could do to stop myself from sobbing out loud.
It’s been like this for a long time now, for as long as I can remember. And I know it will never change. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Tomorrow will be even worse. Liana knows I’ll be going away soon.
No one has ever seen this side of her; our friends would be shocked if they knew the truth. They’d be horrified.
But they’ll never know. Never.
It’s our little secret.
***
Before I tell you of my first meeting with Liana, there are a few things you should know about me, or rather, about my early sex life. Nothing smutty, just a few words that might help explain my present predicament. Otherwise, nothing will make much sense.
Joanne, my first partner, was slim, about five feet two inches in height, and had a beautifully shaped body with full, firm hemispherical
breasts, a neat, small waist, and a beautiful peach-like bottom. Sex with Joanne, whilst never earth-shattering, was, for the most part, highly pleasurable and full of warmth and gentle humour. We did not experiment much (what, after all, would two virgins know about experimentation?) and I suppose the most daring thing we did was eschew the mattress in favour of alternative items of furniture.
Joanne was not my idea of the perfect woman, but over a period of two years I became accustomed to making love to a woman who had what standard Western tastes would call “a good figure”. During all the time that the two of us stayed together, I was never unfaithful to Jo. There were more attractive women around the University, certainly, but whilst I may have looked, I never touched.
Remember, I considered myself fortunate to have a girlfriend at all, let alone one who many (myself included) considered sexy, and I did not delude myself into thinking that the stunning blondes and leggy brunettes would fall for my increasingly clever patter and straggly beard when the competition consisted of several hundred chisel-chinned, dark-eyed he-men.
However, such things do not stop a man from dreaming, and there were occasions when I would fantasise about, say, Valerie, the Jane Fonda lookalike who studied in the School of Social Sciences. Women like Valerie set my pulse racing and made me go weak and stupid. On the two occasions when I met her, I managed to make a complete idiot of myself, due, certainly, to the knowledge that this was the sort of woman that I wanted above and beyond all others, and - the miserable truth - that I would never have her.
Although my confidence had improved dramatically by the time I graduated, I was still not aware that I possessed something that women would later refer to as my “sexual magnetism”. I still mistakenly believed that women equated “sexy” with “good-looking”, and were turned on only by men with square jaws, bustling biceps, come-to-bed eyes and big bulges in their underpants. It never occurred to me (and would not for some time) that I could be desired by beautiful women.
In fact, I often wondered why Jo didn’t leave me; there were plenty of better looking men than me around, most of whom had shown more than just a passing interest in her, and I think she could have had her pick. I figured she stayed with me because it was safe, comfortable, and because I had been the first man she had slept with. I never thought about leaving Jo, not simply because I loved her, but because I felt certain that I could do no better.
Richard, on the other hand, had bedded more women during his three years at university than the combined conquests of the entire School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (127 mostly acned males and one hermaphrodite). Like I said, Richard had this look about him - a bit like a more rugged version of James Dean - and women seemed to go weak at the knees when he walked into the room. I was envious beyond all reason.
Maybe I was mistaken and it was all in my imagination. Perhaps Richard lied about all the women he’d laid. The truth was irrelevant; I knew all too well what I believed at that time: Richard was proof positive that only good- looking men screwed beautiful women, and as far as I was concerned, this was an irrefutable fact of life, as certain as sunrise.
The pseudo-Fondas and Bardots paraded through my fantasy world like ghosts walking through walls, and all I could do was hope that somewhere there was a kind, benevolent God who would look down on me with pity and compassion and grant me, just once, a night with a sex-starved Venus whose only desire was to perform acts of unspeakable depravity with a horny little human being who had a big nose and no discernible chin.
Chapter 4
When Venus appeared, I was wholly unprepared. In fact, I had not expected to meet anyone that day, let alone the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.
I had deliberately chosen to eschew company; it was my second day in Udaipur, and I needed some quiet time alone to assimilate all that had happened to me in the three weeks since I had arrived in India.
One should be prepared for India, and in my preparations I had spoken to many people who had travelled here. But none of them had mentioned noise to me; no one had said, “Oh, by the way, about noise ...” Why didn’t anyone say anything? I have returned to India many times over the years, and it is always the same. I mean, we’re not just talking about the background sounds of everyday life, nor are we talking intermittent bursts of rowdiness. We’re talking full blast sensory assault; we’re talking auditory GBH.
Noise in India is as dynamic, as varied, as all pervading as anything you might set eyes upon, only whereas you can close your eyes or stare into space, you cannot stop hearing. You cannot close your ears. Not to the yelling and screaming; not to the amplified strangulations of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer; not to the thunderclaps and gunfire bursts of motorbikes backfiring; not to the continual roar of a thousand combustion engines, each revving well past built-in tolerances. Not to the ubiquitous and continual blasts of horns, full blown symphonic sustains, all in unison if not harmony. Not to the discordant wail of Indian pop music blaring from flared horns at street corners, on trucks, wherever. Not to the dawn chorus of hawking and spitting, each de-phlegming a cacophony of bodily and guttural reverberations culminating in an expectorated crescendo.
You cannot close your ears, either, to the malevolent street traders, rickshaw drivers, store owners and “official” guides with their, “Just look, no buy”, “Where you go, I take you”, “Come look at my postcards” and, “I guide you, good price”. And more: the rattling of ruined rotor blades and eccentric extractor fans, the gurgling of prehistoric plumbing and the slamming of rickety doors. The cries of children, the squeal of pigs...
There is noise and there is noise, but in India, there is only the latter.
After the madness of Delhi, Udaipur came as something of a surprise to me. I was just getting used to the idea that India was a noisy, smelly, filthy, overcrowded madhouse, and suddenly this glorious city appeared, like an oasis in the desert, to confound and delight me. On my first day I wandered around awestruck, trying to absorb in its entirety all that I set my eyes upon, from the lowliest shack to the grandest edifice.
Udaipur was dominated by its wonderful City Palace, the grandest and the largest that I had seen at that time. Standing on the edge of Lake Pichola, it was a magnificent structure, an immense folly, composed of turrets and towers, cupolas and balconies, built in grand Moghul style, totally overshadowing the lake edge. The years had not been kind to the City Palace, and time had taken its toll; walls were crumbling, paint was peeling, and much of the interior had been given over to a museum housing a sad collection of inconsequential garbage, but even so, the place still reverberated with the glory of its former days.
Lying in the shadow of the palace, between the main buildings and the lake, I discovered a strange, timeless no man’s land of forgotten courtyards, open stairways, empty passages and ruined walkways. In this peaceful, half-awake world lived a small community of squatters who had made their homes among the rubble and detritus.
I wandered through this area with a growing fascination, taken aback by the sheer oddity of its existence. In order to make my way through this dream world, I had to traverse a convoluted, maze-like route. Every now and then I’d find myself following a passageway leading to a staircase that would in turn give on to a deserted open terrace that offered the most spectacular view of the lake and its crowning glory, the white marble fantasy of the Lake Palace, a shimmering mirage that appeared to float upon the surface of the lake.
Such was the power that this extraordinary building held on the imagination, that whenever it came into view I would stop in my tracks and stare in awe and disbelief.
At one such terrace the view was completely unobscured, so I sat down on the cool flagstones, positioned my back against the wall, and marvelled at the spectacle. The air was clear and warm, the sky a brilliant, undisturbed blue. Ahead of me, the waters of the lake rippled in the gentle breeze, and the only sounds to be heard were the occasional birdcall and the steady rhythms of wet fabric bein
g beaten against stone, as the dhobi wallahs executed their clothes-washing duties.
I must have sat there, mesmerised, for a couple of hours, drawing in the visions before me, mulling peacefully over the events of the previous few days. It was the first peaceful time I had had since my arrival.
By late afternoon the sun - no longer beating down from on high - had entered my general field of view, heralding a magnificent sunset which lay just a couple of hours away. How lucky I am, I thought to myself, to have been allowed to witness this, to experience this moment.
And as if this wasn’t enough to keep a twenty-one- year-old entranced, into this dream walked another, more splendid vision.
‘Have you everseen anything more beautiful?’
Kissing Through a Pane of Glass Page 2
