The Elephanta Suite

by Paul Theroux

  On the first trip, and for part of the second, he had seen India as a hostile, thronged, and poisoned land where a riot might break out at any moment, triggered by the slightest event, the simplest word, the sight of an American. And he would be overwhelmed by an advancing tide of boisterous humans, rising and drowning him amid their angry bodies.

  Did you get sick?

  India was germ-laden. Sheely had ended up dehydrated and confined to his hotel room with an IV drip in his arm, and he swore he would never go back to that food and that filth.

  Dwight too had been anxious. That was why he needed Shah. But giving Shah all that responsibility had released Dwight from the tedium of negotiating the outsourcing deals. Shah had the respect of the businessmen, he could handle them, and Dwight's silences had been taken to be enigmatic and knowing. Not talking too much, indeed hardly talking at all, had been a good thing. His silences made him seem powerful. How could he explain that to his talkative and bullying partners?

  He had feared and hated India. He had gone nonetheless because as a young, recently divorced man with no children he had been the logical choice. He had said, "I'll hold my nose."

  On the first trip, he had not eaten Indian food, not gone out at night; he had seen the deals to their conclusion and then ached to be home. He had been welcomed home as though he had been in the jungle, returned from the ends of the earth, escaped the savages, the terrorists, a war zone. India represented everything negative—chaos and night. And so on his return from this second visit he understood what the partners were saying; he had once said them himself.

  "Human life means nothing to those people," Sheely had said. And because he'd been to India—and gotten sick—his word was taken to be the truth.

  "It's teeming, right?" Kohut asked. "I saw a program about it on the Discovery Channel."

  Ralph Picard, whose area was copyright infringement, said, "I've got to hand it to you, Dwight. I could never do anything like that."

  The Elephanta Suite was one of the best in the hotel. He had a driver always, and he seldom opened a door—doors were snatched open for him to pass through. Yet, even knowing that these praising remarks were undeserved, he accepted them, and was strengthened by them. After the fiasco of his brief marriage, it was nice to be thought of as brave, and he liked being regarded as a kind of conqueror—it was how a success in India was seen by the Boston office. It was unexpectedly pleasant to be thought of as a hero.

  And so, although he was seldom inconvenienced in India, and lived in luxury, he played up the discomfort—the heat, the dirt, the rats, the beggars, the sidewalks so filled with people you couldn't walk down them, the sight of bearded Muslims and their shrouded women, the sludgy buttery food that looked inedible, the water that wasn't drinkable, people sleeping by the side of the road and pissing against trees. He said nothing about his suite or the manservant who came with it—I will be your butler, sir.

  "Pretty grim," he said.

  But those characterizations of India, though containing a measure of truth, did not say it all, nor did they matter much to him. They merely described the stereotype of India, and it was always a relief for people to hear a stereotype confirmed.

  He couldn't say: I've broken through it all. He couldn't say: It was the girl.

  In small ways he'd known it in the past, this feeling of a place altered by a single person. How often a landscape was charged and sweetened for him because he had been in love, because he'd somehow managed to succeed with a woman. He had her and everything was different—he had a reason to be there, and more, a reason to return. It was not just the sex; it was a human connection that made a place important to him.

  This discovery in India of a desire in himself that had found release, and also to be thought of as a hero—suffering a week of meetings and clouds of germs, when the fact was that India could be bliss—gave him strength.

  It had happened so simply, because Indru had pursued him.

  "I'm coming back," he said.

  "I wait you."

  Who in the States, in his whole life, had ever said those words to him with such a tremor of emotion? He wanted Maureen to call, to ask him how he was, so he could say, "Fine, and by the way, I gave the diamond ring away to a girl I met in an alley in India."

  He felt happier without the diamond in his pocket. But maybe it was better that Maureen didn't call. He didn't want to tell her he was happy. She'd say, "See? I told you it would change your life," and he didn't want her to be so complacently right about him.

  He was strengthened by believing that India was the land of yes. And for the five months he remained in Boston he felt he was like the exiled king of a glittering country that was full of possibilities and pleasures. What made this sense of exile even more satisfying was the knowledge that his colleagues regarded his having gone there as an enormous sacrifice, a trip fraught with danger and difficulty.

  He lobbied to return, first with Kohut, who was the most senior partner, then with Sheely, who was terrified of being sent back. But his lobbying took the form of casual questions rather than an outright offer to go. If he looked too eager, they'd take him less seriously and would be less inclined to offer him a hardship allowance.

  "We've got a couple of clients pending," Kohut said. "It's great of you to ask. We'd like to send you back with three or four deals, not so much to maximize the hours as to make it easier for you."

  "I'm just saying I could probably help. I know the terrain a bit better."

  "It might mean two weeks of back-to-back meetings."

  "Make it three. Less pressure." And Dwight spoke of strategy.

  "Hunt, you're amazing."

  "That I've developed some contacts?"

  "That you'd go there at all. To me, it's a black hole."

  "There's money in that hole."

  But even as he spoke about the potential deals and the money to be made, he was thinking of Indru and how she had followed him in her white dress and white shoes. How she had said, I wait you.

  Not just Indru, but she seemed to speak for thousands of others who were waiting, like the willing girls in the "Matrimonials" ads. Something within him had been liberated and released, perhaps something as simple as his fear.

  So this was what true travelers knew, and maybe some lawyers too! You said, "Poor guy, so far away in that awful place," never guessing that he was someone you didn't know at all, a happy person in a distant place that allowed him to be himself—girls saying Whatever you want, sir and What you like? or the most powerful word in the language of desire, Yes.

  He realized that he had discovered what other travelers knew but weren't telling, that India could also be pleasurable. He was one of those men, just as smitten, just as cagey. He didn't say to Kohut, "Please send me back." Instead he let the client list accumulate and waited for Kohut to summon him.

  And then he left, going to India as to a waiting lover, a patient mistress.

  "We have meetings tomorrow," Shah said. He had met him at the airport, behind a man in a uniform carrying a sign lettered Huntsingha. They were sitting in the back of his car.

  "It's already tomorrow," Dwight said.

  It was two in the morning. This odor of dust and diesel, woodsmoke, decay, industrial fumes and flowers, and the odor of humans, the complex smell of India—he had never been anywhere that smelled like this. This dense cloud contained the hum of India's history, too—conquerors, burnings, blood, the incense of religion. It was less a whiff than a wall of smell.

  "Back-to-back meetings," Shah said. Kohut's expression—they must have been talking. Shah was an element of the firm now. "When's the first one?"

  "Eight-thirty, and so on into the day," Shah said.

  "Okay." Dwight thought: At least I'm here.

  "Hit ground running, so to say."

  "But I'm free tomorrow night?"

  "Tomorrow night we have fundraiser at the Oberoi, main ballroom. Two of potential clients will be attendees."

  This "we" wa
s new, along with Shah's brisker manner.

  Shah dropped him at his hotel, saying, "See you shortly."

  It was a bad joke, which kept Dwight awake, wide-eyed in the darkness of the Elephanta Suite, his alertness reminding him that it was late afternoon in Boston. He lay sleepless in his bed, dozing, and did not begin to slumber deeply until it was time to wake up.

  Being weary and irritable at the meeting had the effect of cowing the manufacturers—the textile man with his order of leisure wear, the plastics man and his patio furniture, the team from nearby Mylapore who made rolls of nylon webbing, and, at the end of the day, the hardest negotiation of all, the techies from Hyderabad whose company made components for cell phones.

  Kohut had provided the client list and Shah had lined up the product people. As always there were costs to be assessed, samples to be examined and evaluated, quality-control clauses, shipping costs. The contracts were like architectural plans, each stage of the discussion a new set of elevations, a sheet of specs, going deeper into the descriptions. But Shah had taken care of that, too. Dwight sat while Shah went through the contracts, turning pages slowly, always drawn to a detail, as though to wear the manufacturer down.

  "Item four, subsection B, paragraph two, under 'Definitions,'" Shah said. "We suggest inserting 'piece goods,' do we not, Mr. Hund?"

  "Gotta have it."

  But, frowning for effect, he was thinking of Indru. He was impatient to see her, and because he had not heard from her, he knew he would have to go looking for her. He couldn't marry her. He fantasized adopting her. This is my daughter. Could he get away with it? Give her piano lessons, find her a tutor, get her some grooming, teach her French, move to Sudbury and buy her a pony.

  After the meeting, alone with Shah in the boardroom, he said, "I'm wiped out. I can't face this fundraiser."

  "Gala dinner and dance for charity," Shah said.

  "Whatever."

  "It is necessary."

  This finicky urgency, this tenacity, set Shah apart—perhaps set Indians apart. It was another aspect of the obsession with detail. Dwight had arrived at two A.M., he'd hardly slept, the meetings had gone on all day; now it was almost six in the evening and Shah was insisting on this further event.

  "Give me a reason."

  Shah said, "Reason is that sociability is highly prized by Mumbai people. You will be noticed. You will get big points for attending. And Oberoi is important venue."

  Dwight was shaking his head.

  Shah said, "And major client will be there, software developer Gopinathan. You must meet him in a social setting in the first instance. It is critical. We are seated at his table."

  "What's the dress code?"

  "Suits for gents."

  But half the men at the gala wore black tie. In the hotel lobby a large placard propped on an easel said, Shrinaji Gala Dinner Dance to Aid Women in Crisis. Glamorous couples chatted in the busy ballroom, where tables had been elaborately set, three wine glasses at each place. Dwight noticed that many of the beautiful women were being escorted by their much shorter, much older, much fatter husbands. It was a genial and noisy crowd, people loudly greeting each other, some with namastes, some with kisses.

  Wine was being served by waiters in white suits and red turbans. A tray of filled champagne flutes was offered to Shah.

  "I do not take," Shah said.

  Another waiter slid a platter of hors d'oeuvres toward Shah. "I do not take."

  A gong was rung; no one paid any attention. But after it was rung three or four more times, the guests drifted to their assigned tables.

  "Mr. Gopinathan, I have the pleasure to introduce you to my colleague..."

  Before Shah could mispronounce his name, Dwight said, "Dwight Huntsinger. And I want you to know that although I arrived at two this morning and put in a whole day's work, I would not have missed this for anything."

  "Good cause," Mr. Gopinathan said. "Women in crisis. Battered, abused, that sort of thing."

  "And meeting you," Dwight said. "I am looking forward to learning from you."

  "You are too kind," Mr. Gopinathan said. "Please be seated."

  Dwight sat next to Mr. Gopinathan's wife, whose stoutness made her seem friendlier, easier company than the woman on his other side, a golden-skinned beauty in a bottle-green sari. During the meal he concentrated on Mrs. Gopinathan.

  "I am cochair of the charity," she said. "It is a heavy burden."

  "You're doing good work," Dwight said. He wondered if his weariness was making him slur his words.

  "And it is not just women. It is young girls—schoolgirls abducted and abused. You cannot believe. Treated like property. And the health issues!"

  He was glad for the woman's volubility. After he had listened to two courses of this, he turned to the woman on his right, the beauty, and said, "Tell me your story."

  "Perhaps when we have more time," she said, and because she had said it coquettishly, Dwight looked past her, expecting to see her husband, but only saw Shah, spooning orange paste from a small bowl.

  "It is choley," Shah said, startled in his eating.

  "Have you lodged any bids in the silent auction?" the woman asked.

  "No, but I'd like to lodge some," Dwight said. "Maybe you can advise me."

  Glad for any excuse to leave the table, and wishing to stretch his legs—his fatigue was beginning to tell—he excused himself and went with the woman to the foyer, where auction items were set out on long tables, each item with a numbered pad next to it showing the bidders' names.

  "These are exquisite," the woman said, lifting up a velvet-covered box on which a pair of hoop earrings lay on a satin cushion.

  When a woman said "exquisite" like that, it meant "I want them."

  "I don't know much about this stuff," Dwight said, to see her reaction.

  "It's South Indian style," the woman said. "Perhaps something for your wife."

  She was sharp-faced, her green eyes set off by her honey-colored skin. She wore a necklace like a draping of golden chainmail, and her green sari was edged with gold highlights. She was the loveliest woman Dwight had seen in India.

  "If I had a wife," Dwight said. "Which I don't."

  "Pity. Any woman would love to have that piece."

  On the pad next to it was its number and a list of names, the last one showing a bid of twenty-two thousand rupees.

  "How much is that in real money?"

  "In dollars, about"—the woman pursed her lips and swallowed hard, looking more beautiful in this moment of concentration and greed—"six hundred. Even twice that would be a bargain."

  "So I'll improve on it." Dwight added five thousand rupees to the bid, and as he was signing his name, a woman passed by, waited for him to finish, and lifted the pad.

  "Bidding is closed," she called to the room.

  "You're in luck," the lovely woman said. "You're the last bidder, so you'll get the earrings." She smiled at him. "What will you do with them?"

  He leaned toward her and said softly, "Maybe you can help me decide."

  "It would be my great pleasure." Saying this, she drew a small card from the silk purse at her wrist and slipped it into his hand. Then she dropped her voice to a whisper and said, "My mobile number is on it."

  "Thanks."

  The woman was still talking. "It would be better if we did not leave together. The dinner is over in any case. Call me in thirty minutes and I will give you directions." She turned to go, then remembered something else. "You can pay for that at the table over there, where a queue is forming."

  Shah saw him in the payment line. He said, "Ah, you succeeded in a bid. What did you win?"

  "Just a bauble."

  "You succeeded with Gopinathan, too. His wife said you are a great listener."

  It had been his weariness, his inertia, yet now he felt wired, hyperalert, as though drugged. He wondered if it was the woman who had wakened him.

  "Want a lift?"

  "I'll get a taxi."

 
All day he had thought of Indru. At the dinner, especially seeing the expensive food and wine, he had tried to imagine what Indru might be eating at that moment. And having stayed up so late, he thought perhaps he'd stroll past the Gateway of India, just to see whether she might be out strolling herself.

  But instead here he was in a corner of the Oberoi lobby, looking at the name on the woman's card—it was Surekha Shankar Vellore—and dialing the number on his cell phone.

  "Hello."

  "Is that Miss Vellore."

  "Yes. Where are you?"

  "Still in the lobby."

  "Step outside. Have the doorman hail a taxi. Show the card to the driver and he will take you to my address. It's not far."

  Blind to the progress of the taxi, Dwight had looked out the window hoping for a glimpse of the Gateway of India. He saw nothing. Yet he felt unfaithful—where was he going, and why? The last part of the brief taxi ride was a steep hill lined with tall whitish apartment blocks.

  "Shall I wait, sir?"

  "Not necessary."

  Dwight pressed the bell labeled Vellore, and the door latch buzzed open. He heard her voice in the speaker: "Eighth floor." Dwight saw his haggard face in the elevator mirror and said, "What are you doing here?"

  Her apartment, the door ajar, was diagonally across from the elevator, and she stood just inside. She had changed from the green sari into one that was crimson and gold. She had done something to her hair, unbraided it, combed it out. There was more of it than he had seen at dinner. She was barefoot.

  "You're Surekha."

  "Please call me Winky. Come in. What will you drink?"

  He asked for water, and when she brought it, filling his glass from a pitcher, he said, "Um, Winky. You're not married?"

  "Divorced." She sipped at a glass of white wine. "My husband left me for a more up-to-date model. The latest model. That's how he was in life, in business, and cars. Always competitive, but blessed with taste. Always he had to have the best of everything."