Eighty Days to Elsewhere

by kc dyer

  Of course, I’ve forgotten the size of the Wahash Mahat, which is not docked, after all. The harbor here is too far away to see, and we are anchored at least half a mile from the closest pier. In the distance I can see a large, arched monument that looks strangely similar to the Arc de Triomphe, which I also have only seen from a distance. I’m distracted from the view by the hive of activity around the refugees on the deck below mine, as tarps are folded and belongings gathered. Further down, the ship’s tenders are being lowered into the water, and a number of other small craft I don’t recognize are buzzing nearby.

  The reality of departing the ship washes over me. Glancing down at my phone, I’m shocked when I catch sight of the date. How can it be nearly the middle of April already? It feels like an impossible task to cross this country, and literally half of the rest of the way around the world, and make it back to New York in time. Which means, apart from this, the only glimpse of India I’m going to get will have to be from the inside of a speeding train.

  Dominic hurries past and grins at the expression on my face. “What are you worried about now? I thought you’d be thrilled to be heading back onto solid ground.”

  I wave my phone at him glumly. “It’s April fourteenth, and we have just over two weeks to travel half the planet.”

  “We can only do our best,” he says, and then strides off before I can land even a single jab at his nauseating optimism.

  Annoyed with myself for using the word we, I scoop up my suitcase and head down the stairs. I don’t know what Dominic’s plans are, and at this point I don’t care. I have to put all my energy into moving forward.

  Passing the door to the mess hall, I spot the group of Somali refugees gathered inside. I catch sight of Sumaya and pop in to say goodbye. My heavy suitcase snags on the doorframe and I drop it with a thud, right onto my foot.

  As the pain radiates up from my crushed toes to my brain, the only thing I feel is shame. Every person in this room is leaving the ship with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

  Except for me.

  In a trice, I have my suitcase open on the nearest table. Into the lid, I drop all my underwear, my papers and phone, and two changes of clothes. I scoop up the Bowie t-shirt I sleep in and cross the room to say goodbye to Sumaya.

  She seems extraordinarily cheerful and hugs me hard. I write out my e-mail address so we can keep in touch, and she folds it into the small cloth pouch she wears tucked beneath her robes. She seems preoccupied, likely with whatever unknown she’s about to face, but when I hand her the Bowie t-shirt, her eyes light up with excitement.

  “For me?” she says so sincerely, my heart breaks a little at her tone.

  I point at the picture. “He was a pretty famous rock star . . .” I begin, but she holds up a hand.

  “Uh—he was married to Iman,” she says, clutching the shirt to her chest and rolling her eyes. “Only the most famous Somali woman in the world.”

  “Right—right. Well, I’m carrying too much stuff,” I mutter, equally delighted that she is happy and embarrassed that I’ve forgotten this detail. “Will you tell the ladies I want to share?”

  She beams at me and hugs me hard, and we make a quick circle through the rest of the group, saying goodbye as I shake each hand.

  “Nabadgelyo,” I say over and over, as Sumaya has taught me. By the time I reach the last woman, the main compartment of my suitcase is empty.

  “Wad mahatsantahay,” they reply, clasping my hands joyfully. “Ilaah ha idiin barakeeyo.”

  Not one of these women knows what lies in store in Mumbai, but they still take the time to wish me well. My heart goes with them as I watch the captain usher them out the door.

  As I line up behind them to wait for my turn on the ship’s tender, which will whisk us the last few hundred feet across the Arabian Sea, I watch every member of the crew step up to thank Dominic for teaching their cook his favorite recipe for gâteau au beurre.

  My resentment about his popularity fades in the face of reality. By baking them something special, and then sharing his recipes, he’s left part of himself behind with them. It doesn’t hurt that his cake is delicious—moist with the flavors of rum and butter. But Merv has always said food is love, and I’ve never really understood it until now. Whenever the ship’s cook makes that cake again, they’ll think of Dominic.

  All I have left behind me is a collection of travel-worn—though at least freshly clean—clothes. “American white girl overpacks” is not exactly a memorable legacy.

  As Ganesh ushers Dominic onto the tender in front of me, he holds out a small white card.

  “If you get stuck anywhere on the water on your journey,” he says, “message me. I’m from a family of sailors. I’ve got connections.”

  I sling my now much-lighter suitcase ahead of me, but Ganesh holds up a hand to bar my way.

  “This one’s full,” he says. “You’re on the next one.”

  I step back as he swings the gate closed in front of me.

  I try to wave at Sumaya, but her head is turned away.

  “I thought she might want to ride in with me,” I say to Ganesh. “But I guess she needs to go with her group.”

  He shrugs. “She asked specially to ride with Dominic.”

  “Who doesn’t want to ride with Mr. Popularity?” I mutter, but Ganesh has turned to answer the captain, and doesn’t hear.

  As the boat speeds away toward the customs dock, I watch Dominic leaning against the railing beside Sumaya. She says something that makes him laugh. Then he catches my eye and lifts his hand to wave at me. Instead of the usual resentment, I’m struck by the most peculiar panicky feeling that I will never see him again.

  The next tender pulls up almost immediately, and I spend the entire ride berating my subconscious for feeding me ridiculous emotions about a man who’s not even my friend.

  He’s a rival. My only true rival. And if I don’t see him again, it’s a good thing.

  It is.

  chapter thirty-four

  IMAGE: Crane, Sassoon Docks

  IG: Romy_K [Mumbai, India, April 14]

  #Colaba #TrainStationChaos

  153

  I’m on the final tender, so I disembark with the last half-dozen crew members.

  Ganesh grins at me. “I’m excited. We almost never get to go through the Sassoon Docks. Must be an overload at the main port authority.”

  I glance at him, feeling instantly worried. “Is this further from the center of town? I need to catch my train later today from Central Station.”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “Close enough. There’s a metro rail station not far from here. You’ll be fine.”

  Jamming his hands in his pockets, he rocks back on his heels. “I love this part of town. Anything in the world you want? You can buy here in Colaba.” He waggles his eyebrows at me suggestively.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, but he’s suddenly disappeared into the crowd.

  I join what looks like a roughly forming line outside the customs office, and try to take in everything that’s going on around me. The aroma of being back on land hits me first, but this is like nothing I have ever smelled before. Fish and hemp and the oily smoke of cooking nearby jostle for prominence, but I can also smell flowers and something that I think must be incense.

  The pier itself looks very old, and it’s lined with open wooden sheds along its whole length. The sheds shelter enormous piles of fishing nets, stacks of massive baskets, and huge wooden spools of the sort for rolling rope. To one side, dozens of tiny fishing boats are moored, painted in every color of the rainbow, but most in need of repair. With their flat bottoms and flat roofs, they look like jaunty little rowboats. I can’t imagine they have the power to tow the enormous nets coiled on the dockside, but they must. Even at this early hour, as boats putter out of their mooring spots, new boats
pull in to unload their catch, stored on the tiny decks in huge baskets like the ones piled on the dock.

  Above the door to the customs office, a tall white crane with a lethal-looking black beak perches on the branch of a tree awash in red, fragrant blossoms. The crane gazes across the water toward a derelict lighthouse on the shoreline across from the pier, the rotting timbers of its structure visible through a dense forest of trees. Above the trees, the tower stretches to the sky, but where the light must have once flashed, a small tree has taken root, its branches sheltering the tower like a large, leafy umbrella.

  “These docks were built by the Sassoon company in the nineteenth century,” says Ganesh, who suddenly reappears beside the doors to the customs office. “They are Mumbai’s oldest docks. You go in this way, yes?”

  So, apparently what I thought was a line was not. As he shepherds me past the milling group of people outside, I feel sweat trickling down my spine beneath my shirt. It’s just past eight in the morning local time, but the air already has a damp heat to it that doesn’t bode well for the rest of the day. The breeze that buffeted the decks of the Wahash Mahat is most definitely not in evidence here. Inside the door to the customs office, I expect to see Dominic ahead of me in line. Instead, Ganesh waves me over to stand beside him.

  “Normally, you’d go to a line for foreigners,” he says as we join the queue for processing. “At the airport or even the port authority, there’s a special queue for foreigners with visas. But here, you muck in with us regulars.”

  I dig out my passport and clutch it nervously. The visa Teresa Cipher arranged is safely folded inside.

  “Where are you heading next?” Ganesh asks as we take a few steps forward.

  “Apparently I can take a train right across to Kolkata,” I say. “I had a clear signal last night for about an hour, so I checked it online. It goes from the Central Station, I think?”

  “You’re braver than I am. I hate the crowds, so Indian train stations are not my favorite places. I always fly, if I can.”

  I swallow hard. “Not really an option for me,” I mutter, moving forward with the line. “And it’ll take too long to go by bus.”

  He bursts out laughing at this, and then stops suddenly when he sees my face. “Oh—you’re not kidding? Okay, well, sounds like train it is, then. Make sure you look for the ladies’ car.”

  Right then, the customs agent calls me forward, so I have no chance to ask if he’s joking or not. As I step forward, Ganesh pats my shoulder, wishes me luck, and then heads off to a different agent. Waiting for the officer to examine my paperwork, I scan the room again, but the rest of the crew must have passed through already. When Ganesh gets waved on, I lose sight of my last familiar face.

  The officer in front of me leafs through each page of my passport, before stamping it. He informs me that I am welcome to return any time for the next year to India without having to reapply for a visa. Then he kindly points me to another officer, who he promises can give me directions to the train station. But before I can even think of catching a train, I need to send in my report to ExLibris, and for that? I need Wi-Fi.

  The information officer looks bored, and is clearly puzzled at my request for an internet cafe. Instead, he points me through a set of distant gates, and onto a busy street beyond. He answers me in English, but his accent is so pronounced, and he speaks so quickly, I have trouble catching all the details. In the end, I decide he’s directing me to a hotel, which at least will be a good start. I thank him politely, determined to counteract everything I have read about the Ugly American abroad. Stepping out of the building, I am immediately swept up into the loud, terrifying, magnificent chaos that is twenty-first-century Mumbai.

  As I exit the ornate gates that mark the end of the Sassoon Docks, the air tastes dusty and hangs heavy with the smell of exhaust from nearby traffic. The street is jammed with women wearing jewel-tone saris, and tunics with flowing trousers in brilliant color combinations, often topped with a contrasting scarf. People are busy chatting, walking, working. One elderly lady rolls an impossibly large bundle of laundry down the street. I stop to surreptitiously snap her picture, and then head out into the surging crowd.

  The atmosphere is generally cheerful, but the sheer number of people is overwhelming. There’s no way I can adopt the eyes-down, purposeful stride technique that I use daily in New York, because this tactic only works when you know where you are going.

  My single advantage at this point is height. I’m not quite five ten in my sock feet, but here I literally can look over the heads of the crowd to orient myself a bit. After all, this number of people is little different than what I’d find in Times Square on New Year’s at midnight.

  The fact that I would never go anywhere near Times Square almost any time of year, let alone New Year’s at midnight, should not have any bearing. I can cope with these crowds.

  I can.

  Following the crowd as it surges out onto the high street, I spot a sign saying “Hotel Anand,” and aim myself in that direction. This is no easy task, since everyone seems to have some important place to be, and no one is prepared to give way.

  The thing about this journey is that, apart from my one quiet night in Chamonix, it’s been cities all the way. I’m city-hopping my way around the globe. I’m a city-hopping city girl who has lived in and loved big cities all my life.

  But Mumbai?

  Mumbai is something else.

  I know from a little onboard Googling that Colaba is a big shopping district in Mumbai. But I’ll tell you something. Colaba is about as far from Fifth Avenue as this New York girl is ever going to get. I’ve always struggled with the presence of beggars on the streets of my own city. Every city has them, I know. Growing up, Tommy always took a tough stance . . . Every penny you give them goes to drugs, he would say disparagingly. Don’t give them a cent.

  As an adult myself now, I don’t ascribe to this theory. My compromise is generally to carry an extra granola bar in my pocket to hand over when someone asks. Even if Tommy’s right, I can say truthfully that never once has my offer been refused.

  I’m under no illusions that this is helping, or doing anything apart from assuaging my liberal guilt. But that liberal guilt is being given a workout like never before as I walk the street leading to the hotel in Colaba.

  Mumbai, I see before me, is a city of absolutely tremendous contrasts. The colors are brilliant: yellow, orange, pink, red flowers blooming, draped on tiny shrines inside the base of mighty baobab trees—even right here downtown!—and hanging from strings above merchant stalls. As I walk past, the heavy, rich scent of the flowers is soon replaced by the sweet tang of sugarcane, being chopped and ground up in a street stall. But the stalls themselves, and many of the buildings, are in an advanced state of decay and disintegration. Everywhere I look, things are dirty and falling down.

  And while I stare in wonder at the city, Mumbai stares right back at me. More than any place I’ve ever been before, my presence marks me as a stranger. My height; my kinky, rusty hair; my pallid, awkwardly sunburned skin. I’ve never walked down a street and felt every eye upon me like this before. A Mumbai walk should be compulsory for every complacent white person in the world. This is what it feels like to be the Other. Twice in a single block, a teenage boy runs up to me, cell phone in hand, and takes a selfie beside me before I figure out what’s happening. I feel like a freak.

  Right now, I’m too caught up in my quest to think this through, but file it away for future consideration as I press on toward the hotel.

  The street is teeming with traffic, an endless cacophony of horns and speeding motorcycles and dodging pedestrians. The sidewalks are crumbling, but are still overrun with local merchants, many with their goods spread out on tarps. Piles of watches, and bangles, and sneakers. A cart laden with small red fruits about the size of plums, but still on the branch. Later, I find out these are called lychees
, commonly eaten to provide refreshment from the ever-present, humid heat of the city. Beside the cart, a man lays out jean shorts and plastic sand buckets and huge baskets of smoky, fragrantly roasted nuts.

  Collections of tiny children—toddlers, really—run between the tarps, playing under the watchful eye of sari-draped grandmothers. There’s no rhyme or reason to the retail—piles of bananas sit next to multicolored flip-flops; cobblers repair shoes sitting inside tiny workshops on wheels next to sari-clad women deep-frying samosas and pakoras. The spicy-sweet smell of these last is almost intolerably delicious, but that rogue shawarma in Port Said is too close to my stomach to risk another leap into street food so quickly.

  By contrast, the hotel is located in a freshly painted building. Three motorcycles are lined up neatly out front, and two turban-clad, elegantly uniformed doormen oversee taxi-hailing and keep the general public off the pavement outside.

  By the time I reach the hotel doorway, I’m drenched in sweat. Even my daypack, tucked under one arm, is completely damp. Gross as this must look, the doormen immediately smile, bow, and hold the door open for me. I feel an equal mixture of embarrassment and relief.

  This trip is really messing with my head.

  As the doormen politely wave me inside the entrance to the hotel, it occurs to me that I’m in possession of exactly zero Indian currency. I’m going to need cash to buy some time online, some food—not street food—and a train ticket. I point my sweaty self in the direction of the front desk to find someone to explain the currency exchange. Just how much is a rupee worth, anyway?

  * * *

  —

  An hour later, I have cash in my pocket, and directions to the nearest Mumbai Suburban Railway station, which the kind hotel clerk assures me is the quickest connection to the Central Station and my train out of town. Their Wi-Fi was down, but I’m sure I can find somewhere to log on when I get to the station.