Out of Order

by Charles Benoit

  “Okay I guess. It’s a bit stiff from the tetanus shot though.”

  “If you’d like I can have a doctor come by and take a look.”

  “Thanks, but I think it’ll be fine. It’s a hell of a place you got here,” Jason said, waving at the house with his drink.

  “Absolutely amazing,” Rachel said, staring at the man’s hazel eyes.

  Narvin gave a modest nod. “I’ve been lucky. The film industry has been very good to me. No, I’m not an actor,” he said, guessing the next question. “I’ve done some bit parts, a lot of walk-ons when they need an extra, but I work behind the camera. Post production. Computer enhancement, special effects, that sort of thing.”

  “Computers. So that’s how you knew Sriram.”

  “We were friends since freshman year of high school. Our desks were side by side in every class for years. We roomed together at university.” Narvin chuckled, “I even introduced him to Vidya.”

  “Vidya and Sriram were friends of mine in Corning,” Jason said to Rachel and stopped, not knowing how to explain their deaths.

  “I hope it was an arranged marriage,” Rachel said, still smiling at Narvin. “I hear that those love marriages don’t tend to last.”

  Jason and Narvin exchanged an uncomfortable glance, Narvin turning to Rachel, his smile back in place. “Theirs was definitely a love marriage. I never knew two people more in love.”

  “The happiest people I ever met,” Jason added, his doubts falling away, and again met Narvin’s eyes, this time to exchange silent memories of their dead friends.

  “It was Sriram who got me interested in the movie industry here in Mumbai,” Narvin said, breaking the silence.

  “Weren’t you in on that business Sriram and some others started?”

  “Bangalore Worldwide Systems,” Narvin said in a booming, heroic voice, his hand showing the placement of the words in the open, blue sky. “Oh yeah. What pretentiousness. A handful of semi-talented programmers, hunched over a bunch of bashed-together computer terminals in a rented garage on the outskirts of Bangalore. But we were going to change the world.” He held up a forefinger to punctuate the line, laughing his baritone laugh. “Sriram was the only one with any real talent. The others were just hanging on, hoping to make it rich. Myself included, I guess.”

  “Were you upset when he….” Jason paused, trying to think of the best way to say it.

  “When he left us for the States?” Narvin said, sensing his guest’s discomfort. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I would have waited around for BWS to take off, but when he departed and BWS collapsed I finally did what Sriram had been telling me to do for years. I came here to Mumbai and got myself into the tech side of the film industry. Of course I thought it was my talent that had gotten me noticed, but I later learned that it was Sriram—some ancient family connections that he could have called in for himself but instead used to get me started in Bollywood.”

  “Bollywood?” Rachel said, finding a way into the conversation. “Don’t you mean Hollywood?”

  “India’s film industry is located here in Mumbai, which of course used to be Bombay. Hence, Bollywood.”

  Rachel smirked. “What were you saying about pretentiousness?”

  “It’s hard to be humble in Bollywood these days. Look at it this way,” Narvin said. “Each year Hollywood puts out about seven hundred movies. Bollywood averages close to eleven hundred. Most are made for less than four million, but three of the films I’m working on now will end up costing over thirty million. Each. And that’s dollars, not rupees. It’s a billion-dollar industry and, unlike Hollywood, it’s growing. But please don’t think I’m offended,” he said, sensing Rachel’s embarrassment. “It’s just that when it comes to movies I’m afraid I’m a rabid patriot.”

  “We don’t get too many Hindi movies in Corning,” Rachel said, turning to Jason, who nodded, verifying her assumption.

  “Well, don’t tell that to any of the people you meet tonight. There’s a premiere party on Madh Island.”

  “Oh, how exciting,” Rachel said, beaming.

  “Horribly dull, I’m afraid. Industry types, film people, the press. It will be boring as hell, but thanks to you, I won’t have to suffer alone.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The last time he had had champagne it had been mixed with orange juice and served in soft-sided plastic cups, part of Vidya’s New Year’s Day brunch in their drafty Corning apartment. It was over-fizzy and sickeningly sweet and he had felt a headache coming on after the third glass, Vidya and Sriram downing two bottles and a quart of o.j. between them. Now the champagne was buttery smooth and served in long-stemmed crystal flutes, a taste—and a style—Jason knew he could come to enjoy.

  Behind him, the Retreat Hotel rose out of a garden of exotic trees and flowering bushes into the dark night sky. He could hear the clatter of china plates and polished silver echoing from the patio restaurants along with the mumble of a hundred dinner conversations, punctuated by the high-pitched laughs of women who had had one too many. Tiny strings of lights sparkled from the tops of towering palm trees, and along the twisting footpaths, half-hidden lights led down the stairs to the lagoon-shaped pool where, on an island bar, a Hawaiian-shirted Bengali waiter was ready in case any of the partygoers should end up in the water in need of a drink.

  Ringing the pool and scattered about on the lower patio in random pockets, Bollywood’s elite celebrated the release of the week’s latest blockbuster. The men were all in suits, Savile Row or tailored Italian, with many wearing long, brightly colored Nehru coats, a centuries-old Indian style that was clearly still in fashion. Jason pushed out his chest, trying to fill Narvin’s light gray Armani, and flexed the fingers of his left hand. His arm was stiff and warm, the fresh bandages filling the baggy sleeve like a well-developed forearm. The pants felt loose and long, but Narvin had insisted he looked great. “Besides,” he said by way of consolation, “they’ll all be drunk anyway.”

  They had ridden to the party in yet another chauffeur-driven, limousine-sized SUV, Narvin mixing drinks, pointing out the Raj-era Victorian buildings and the wide-screen vistas, both frequent backdrops in Hindi films.

  “We were filming on that beach there a couple months back,” Narvin said, tapping his swizzle stick on the tinted glass. “Four in the morning and fifteen thousand people lining the street to watch. It was insane. You can’t film a Bollywood film in Bollywood anymore.”

  Jason stretched his legs out and swirled the ice in his drink. “You said that Bollywood movies are popular….”

  “No. I said they were the most popular movies in the world.”

  “Then how come I’ve never seen one?”

  Narvin laughed. “I’m afraid that says more about you than it says about Bollywood. Listen, who’s the most famous actor in the world?”

  “I don’t know,” Jason said pausing. “Tom Hanks. John Travolta maybe.”

  “First would be Sean Connery, but not now. Back in his early Bond days,” Rachel said. “Next would be Johnny Depp in that pirate movie, then Samuel L. Jackson. In anything.”

  “That sounds like a different kind of list.”

  “A girl can dream.”

  “Careful,” Narvin said, looking into Rachel’s eyes as he raised his glass to his lips. “You’re in the city where dreams come true.” Jason couldn’t be sure—the light was dim and he wasn’t watching that closely—but it looked like Narvin had winked as he said it.

  “So anyway,” Jason said. “The most famous actor in the world.”

  “Shah Rukh Khan.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well, billions have. Not just here in India or over in Pakistan, but in China, all throughout the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean…everywhere Indians have gone—and brother, we’ve gone everywhere—we’ve brought Bollywood with us. And it’s the locals—the Chinese, the Arabs, the French, whatever—they love these movies. They know the actors, the plots, the songs. It’s far mor
e global than Hollywood.”

  “I’ve seen a few Hindi movies,” Rachel said. “Like they say, seen one….” She let her voice trail off, the cliché complete without the words.

  Narvin nodded. “It’s a genre, I’ll grant you that. Star-crossed lovers, cruel fate, loving families, lots of dance numbers, and catchy songs. No sex—not even a kiss—but bet on a clingy, wet-sari-in-the-rain scene. But even that formula is changing. Sure, there’s a lot of crap, but that’s true for Hollywood as well, yet Bollywood films are getting more popular. They give the people something they’re not getting from the West. I’m telling you, Jason, there’s some great filmmaking going on in Bollywood,” Narvin said as the Retreat Hotel loomed on the horizon. “And it’s coming to a theater near you.”

  Inside, among the movie heartthrobs and music stars, Narvin lost some of his glamour, appearing simply average in this above-average crowd of men. Although he had never seen a Hindi film, Jason could spot the celebrities by their square jaws and confident smiles and by the way others stood gawking when they walked past, how they waved and gestured, knowing someone was always watching.

  The women wore their dark hair long and straight, and when they tossed it back, laughing just so at a clever remark or turning on cue to catch the greetings of a male co-star, it glowed as if lit from within. In form-fitting gowns and black cocktail dresses, headline-grabbing chests strained clasps and straps while million-dollar legs teetered on ice-pick heels. At first they seemed interchangeable, the almond-shaped eyes and the bee-stung lips, but Jason began to notice the subtle differences that separated the names-before-the-titles stars from the comic sidekicks’ kid sisters—noses that wrinkled too much when they smiled, chins that came to too sharp a point, breasts that were a half-a-cup size too small. Some wore pinpoint diamond studs in their button noses, others opted for armfuls of gold bangles, and on their foreheads, between thin, arching eyebrows, many wore bejeweled bindis, the cut stone or colored plastic complementing their outfits.

  Jason stayed on the edge of the crowd, just inside the cordon of hotel security officers and sunglass-wearing bodyguards, never quite entering the circles of insiders that formed and grew and dispersed and reformed around the empty pool. After an hour of A-list overload, he began to notice that there were others at the party—overweight, out of style, unattractive, old—and Jason knew that these were the producers and directors and the moneymen that controlled the destiny of every flawless face at the party.

  Narvin materialized at his side. He wore a pale blue, collarless jacket that stretched down to his knees, a complementing silk scarf hanging around his neck. He gave a low, deep hum. “I still think you should have someone look at it, but it’s your arm. So tell me,” he tilted his glass towards the pool, “who do you recognize?”

  Jason scanned the crowd, tapping along with the American pop tune that the DJ worked into the mix. “Besides you and Rachel and that one waiter that I almost knocked over coming in, no one. Who should I know?”

  “It’s no fun dropping names if you don’t know who I’m talking about.”

  “I promise to be impressed.”

  Narvin laughed. “All right then. The gentleman in the black suit and no tie….”

  “With all the women around him?”

  “Yes. That is Salman Khan, sort of the Indian Brad Pitt.”

  “Ohhh. And the Sylvester Stallone-looking guy?”

  “That’s Sanjay Dutt. Same type of Rambo movies. You see that woman by the edge of the pool, the one in the green sari?”

  “The gorgeous one? Yeah, I sort of spotted her earlier.”

  “That’s one of the Shetty sisters, I can never remember which.” Narvin took a sip of his champagne and gazed out over the crowd. “Amrish Sharma.”

  “Is that the guy in the tux?”

  “No, that was the man that you killed in Ahmadabad.”

  Jason felt the crystal flute slip in his hand, gripping it tight before it fell, the champagne rippling as his hand began to shake.

  “We called him Taco—it’s funny, I don’t recall why.” Narvin continued to look over the heads of the guests and out to the ocean, the white line of the surf just visible in the darkness.

  “He came at me. I didn’t even touch him. He stumbled and fell, I never….”

  “It was his idea to call it Bangalore World Systems. Taco and Sriram and Ravi and Ketan, Attar, Manny and old Piyush, we’d sit for hours—days—in front of those computer screens. He came from a poor family and he put everything his family had into BWS.” Narvin turned his head and looked at Jason, his eyes clear and dark. “Sriram was like a brother to us. That’s why it hurt so much.”

  “Having fun?” Rachel stepped off the stairs behind them, an equally beautiful woman walking beside her. “This is Laxmi. I met her in the women’s room.” Rachel tilted her head in the direction of the hotel. “She says she knows you, Narvin.”

  “Never saw her before in my life,” Narvin said, turning to face them. He slipped an arm around the woman’s sari-clad waist and kissed her golden cheek. “Hello, darling. About time you got here.”

  Laxmi smiled. “Traffic was mad,” she said, her accent more England than India. “You should be thankful I got here at all.”

  Narvin pointed with his now empty glass of champagne. “This is Rachel’s brother, Jason.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Jason said, shaking the offered tips of her slender hand.

  “Jason and I were just discussing mutual friends.”

  “Well, Rachel and I were discussing shoes,” Laxmi said, “and for a woman it’s pretty much the same thing. I was telling her about the shops in Bandra.”

  “You’ll have to excuse my fiancée,” Narvin said to Jason. “She plans on making me destitute in my old age, which, given her spending, must be closer than I thought.”

  “If I had known he was such a miser I would have never agreed to marry him.”

  “Fiancée, huh?” Rachel said, forcing a smile. “So. Is it an arranged marriage or a love marriage?”

  Narvin and Laxmi looked at each other and laughed. “Our friends in London set us up on a blind date last year,” Narvin said. “Technically you could say it’s an arranged marriage.”

  “The love part was just an afterthought,” Laxmi added with a dismissive wave.

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” Rachel said, smile still in place. “From what I hear love marriages don’t last.”

  “A guy on the train,” Jason said. “He was telling us about the low divorce rate for arranged marriages.”

  Laxmi’s smile leveled. “That’s because a divorce is more expensive than a box of matches.”

  Narvin sighed and closed his eyes as he spoke. “Laxmi, darling. You always pick the most interesting times to go political.”

  “I’m sorry, Narvin, but it’s an issue I care strongly about.” She turned and spoke to Rachel. “When marriages are arranged there is often a crushingly large dowry demanded from the bride’s family. Money, electronic goods, cattle if you’re in the countryside, maybe a car in the cities. For some families it represents the single largest increase in their wealth for a lifetime.”

  “Doesn’t it go to the newlyweds?”

  “Some yes, but it is expected that most will go to the groom’s parents. Now jump ahead four, five, ten years. The young bride isn’t so young anymore. Maybe she’s had three beautiful children who all unfortunately happen to be girls, maybe she’s put on a few pounds in the wrong places. A divorce is difficult to get but not impossible. However, the groom’s family would be required to pay back the dowry. But if something should happen to the wife—say an unfortunate cooking accident—well then, a divorce is not necessary.”

  “So the men just set their wives on fire?” Rachel said, eyes wide.

  “No,” Laxmi said, drawing the word out in contrived disgust. “That would never happen. But a sari is such a flammable garment and cooking oil spills so easily and the flame from the gas stove, well, it can be difficu
lt to adjust. By the time the ambulance arrives all that is left is a grieving widower and his still-wealthy parents.”

  “Now Laxmi, you know this isn’t as common as you make it sound,” Narvin said.

  “One is one too many, darling. Last year there were close to three thousand cases of accidents,” she said, adding quotation marks in the air. “Or at least that was how many were reported. Look, I’m not saying arranged marriages are bad. You can have a great love marriage and you can have a great arranged marriage, but abuse goes on in both. Divorce rates don’t mean unhappiness,” Laxmi said, smiling at Rachel. “They mean freedom.”

  ***

  “After I won the talent contest at my high school I really started taking my acting seriously, but there were few opportunities in Chandvad so I moved in with an auntie here in Mumbai.”

  With one hand on the steering wheel of the new Mercedes, Yashila Phatak reached back to flip her hair out from behind her collar. The brake lights of the cars ahead gave her long, brown hair a reddish tint that, for a moment, made Jason think of Rachel.

  “I was always drawn to the theater,” Yashila continued. “I feel the muse here, in my heart.” She placed her hand on her ample chest and risked a quick glance at Jason, holding it there until he returned a nervous smile. She gave her head a faint shake and half-puckered her lips before focusing back on the speeding traffic.

  He had been standing with Narvin, watching as Rachel and Laxmi strolled off to find the bar, when Yashila approached, pretending to trip on the top step in front of them. Both men reached out obligatory hands to catch her feigned fall, the young woman giving a well-rehearsed gasp that slid into an I’m-so-embarrassed laugh, amazed that she bumped into Narvin Kumar since Stardust Magazine had reported he was wintering in the States, and hadn’t she just been telling Salman Khan that she’d love to work on one of his films. In the time that it took Jason to flag down a passing waiter and exchange glasses, Narvin had sped through the introductions, explaining that Jason was a close associate visiting from the States, noting that it was truly a shame that Jason had never seen a proper Hindi film, insisting that Yashila come to his aid, insisting just as firmly that Jason take up her kind offer. Twenty blurry minutes later, Jason found himself wedged in the seat of the speeding Mercedes, the actress careening them towards the mid-city theater that was showing her first film.