When we reached the eighth floor, Aakash slipped his arm around the man’s wiry frame, and whispering purposefully, took him into the gloom at one end of the corridor. They were still talking when the front door nearest to me swung open. A woman in a pale green kaftan stood behind a black metal gate. She was a warm brown colour, with straight waxy hair and slightly jowly cheeks; her smooth hairless skin and raised eyes made me think she was north-eastern or Nepalese. The outline of her large, full body was visible through the fine cotton she was wearing. She clutched the gate with one hand and under the white tips of her French manicure she had tiger-print nails.
She smiled broadly at me and laughed girlishly when she saw Aakash.
‘Suitors, Begum saab!’ the thin man sneered before vanishing down the stairs.
She snapped abuse at him. When it was returned with a wayward cackle, lost in the darkness, she looked back at us and was gracious once again.
The gate opened and we entered a clean brightly lit flat with tiled floors. The begum shut and bolted an iron front door behind us. Apart from the main lock, there were some five or six other locks crudely welded on. A tile of Ganesh near the door read: ‘May he bless every corner of this house.’
An Alsatian with cataract-clouded eyes bounded up to greet us.
‘Stop it, stop it, Zabar,’ the begum said, pushing aside the dog’s snout and showing us into a drawing room, which contained a glass dining table, white leather chairs and sofas under plastic covers. A partially drunk bottle of Diet Coke and a glass-cleaning spray, half-full of blue liquid, stood on the dining table.
Within moments of our sitting down, the begum had rushed off into the kitchen and reappeared with glasses, ice and a bottle of Seagram’s Indian whisky. Aakash looked at me and winked as she poured the whisky. The begum spoke rapidly, complaining about security, then about how Aakash never came to see her any more.
‘At one point,’ she said, looking over her shoulder at me, ‘it was all, “Begum this”, “Begum that” – “Begum, my friends will protect you”, “Begum, can I give you a lift somewhere on my bike?” but now, since he’s on his way to bigger things, since –’
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Aakash said firmly.
The begum shut up, then a moment later looked mournfully back at me and said, ‘Begum’s been forgotten.’
When she brought us our whiskies Aakash took his, and quoting an Urdu poet, said, ‘An age has passed, and your memory has not come to me, but that I have forgotten you – it is not that way either.’
The begum melted. ‘Oh-ho-ho,’ she said. ‘Quoting back to me the couplets I taught you? How easily they come off your tongue.’
Aakash laughed and grabbed her through her cotton kaftan as she gave me my whisky, nearly causing her to fall over on to the sofa.
She moaned and recovered herself.
We drank two or three more whiskies. The begum spoke continuously. She made light flirtatious conversation; she complained about what a burden the Alsatian had become – ‘A blind guard dog! That’s all the begum’s left with’; she lashed out at women more debased than herself but protected by the false sanctities of marriage; she complimented Aakash on his physique; she said her son, who was ‘a carbon copy’ of Aakash, was working as a chowkidar in some rich industrialist’s house, couldn’t Aakash help him get a job in fitness? This request caused friction between them. Aakash cautioned her with a cold stare and her tune changed. She became maternal even as she trailed her tiger nail down his cheek: ‘How good and strong my little boy has grown up to be. I still remember when he was sixteen and –’
‘Begum.’
‘OK, OK, I won’t say.’
Aakash affected a macho silence, the whisky and the begum’s chatter seeming to relax him. But for the pinstripe ‘pardy’ shirt, he was like a man who’d just come home from a hard day at the office. To see him twice in the same day, and in such different ways, a hero among the people he grew up with, made me feel again the power of his position. His versatility was like a confirmation of how authentic and robust his world was. His Delhi was a city of temples and gyms, of rich and poor people, of Bentleys and bicycles, of government flats and mansions, of hookers and heiresses, and he asserted his nativity by moving freely between its varied lives. He made it seem like no less his right than taking one of the new green buses, riding the metro, seeing the sound and light show at the Red Fort or renting a pedal boat at India Gate and floating over the reflections of dark trees and pale sky in its sandstone water tanks.
He seemed to read my admiration, and perhaps helped by the whisky to see himself as I saw him, as many men to many people, here rubbing a baby’s face against his to comfort it, there performing the ancient rites of his caste, he suddenly made a grab for the begum’s breasts through her pale green kaftan, his mud-coloured eyes fixed on me. The begum wriggled joyfully, shrugging off her maternal instincts and becoming what she was. She had been sitting in his lap, but now she rose slightly and pushed her thighs and rear towards him. Her jowly face moved closer to mine while Aakash pulled hard at her breasts. She was inches from me, wiggling and gyrating, making a drama of her arousal. Aakash’s eyes followed mine, his arched lips taut with amusement. My first reaction was anger, feeling this could only be some kind of sexual intimidation. But when he squeezed the begum’s fat thighs and slapped her bottom, causing her to fall forward, her tiger nails clawing my thigh, a smile must have crept into my face. Aakash laughed loudly at seeing it. The begum tried looking behind her to see what was so funny, but Aakash turned her face back towards me, and taking her left hand from my thigh, pressed it into my crotch. It had no effect; I shrank with embarrassment.
Then Aakash lifted up the begum’s kaftan and began to roll it back. He did it with mock assiduity, just as when he had prepared the towel as a neck rest during the squats. It formed a neat band just over her hips. I could see the outline of her exposed thighs and bottom. Aakash, making a face like a laboratory assistant or vet, raised two fingers in the air. When he was sure I had seen the gesture, he inserted them into her with the ease of a man sawing off a piece of wood. The begum groaned.
‘Not here, not here. Come on, to the bedroom.’
Aakash pushed her head down roughly. The Alsatian, who had been watching everything with its cataract-filled eyes, saw this action and jumped up, at once barking and wagging his tail. Aakash looked at the dog, then at me, and feigning confusion, offered the begum’s exposed bottom to the dog with a sweep of his arm.
The begum saw and her face filled with anger. She lurched up, pushing out Aakash’s fingers in the process and slapped her palm against his chest. Aakash nearly fell back.
‘Motherfucker. Bastard. Wretch. Limp dick.’
Aakash folded his hands and begged forgiveness. The begum stormed round the room, sipping her whisky, staring at blank spaces, swinging round to glare at us. The back of her kaftan fell down and hung like a pleated blind. We sat unmoving next to each other on the sofa.
‘Begum, please, forget it now, no? It was just a joke.’
‘Just a joke? You dare humiliate me in front of your rich friends! Me? Who has known you since you were sixteen. I know everything about you. I could destroy you with a click of my fingers.’
Her tiger nails snapped in the air.
Her anger didn’t seem real, but whatever threat she tormented him with had its effect. Aakash, prone to theatrical anger himself, looked around him for his phone and his bike keys, and rose to leave. He gestured to me to get up, and without looking at the begum, made for the door. The begum became hysterical. She clutched Aakash’s arm, which he pulled away. She shook and pulled at her hair. She grabbed Zabar, the Alsatian, and dragged him along until she was at our feet, weeping, imploring Aakash not to go, holding up the dog’s face, with its moonstone eyes, to hers.
I don’t think I believed her exaggerated show of female emotions; I just didn’t feel like leaving. I liked the flat’s anonymity, the whiskies coming easily; I liked seeing Aakash play
the role of the Sectorpur boy who’d grown up and gone away. I was also curious about what the begum had said about destroying Aakash with a click of her fingers. Destroy what? How? And for all these reasons, I tapped Aakash on the arm and said, ‘Let’s stay.’
He scanned my face, seemed quickly to make a decision, then turning to the begum, said, ‘Ey, ey, listen, Begum. My friend here wants to stay. So out of respect to him we’re going to stay. But you try anything crooked again…’
The begum sprang to her feet, kicking aside the dog. It was as if we were arriving for the first time. She straightened her hair as she slipped past us to pour two more whiskies.
Aakash chuckled at her good nature. ‘Now she’s set. Should we get down to it?’
‘Down to what?’
He pressed what I thought was a packet of pan masala into my palm. When I felt its evasive hoop slide between my fingers I said, ‘You’re not serious? She’s quite old and not very pretty.’
‘She was my first.’
‘Maybe, but…’
‘It’s for us, man. It’s one of those things you have to do with your best friend.’
Before I could answer, he opened a bedroom door on our right and pushed me in. I was surprised at how domestic the room was, really like someone’s home. It had glass, almond-shaped wall lights, a single plywood bed with a white lace bedcover and bedside tables. A stand in one corner contained what looked like broken ostrich eggs but were in fact the begum’s foamy bras.
Aakash came in with her a few moments later. Her waxy hair was tied up with a pink scrunchy and instead of her kaftan she wore a satiny tiger-print slip. Aakash, seeing my alarm, began gently massaging the back of my neck. The begum walked towards the plywood bed, the dimples on her thighs forming new patterns with every step. There was something inoffensive to the point of attraction about her soft, hairless body. It seemed as though, once some original hesitation had been overcome, it would be possible to fuck her five times a night, in a way that would be less possible with more beautiful girls.
Aakash led me over to her by the neck, undoing his black pinstripe shirt as he walked. The begum had pulled out two pillows from under the lace bedcover. She rested her palms on one and her knees on the other. Her vagina was black, the hair around shaved clean, the thighs faintly powdered. As Aakash approached, she began to massage herself with her tiger-painted nails, and I noticed that on their yellowish-brown surface, interspersed between the black stripes, were also strands of red. I felt these details make too strong an impression. I knew that they would kill any possibility of sexual arousal.
Aakash at that moment had not only undone his own slate-grey jeans but was about to undo mine when I stopped him. I wasn’t erect and the sight of his small, pencil-thin penis pushing sharply against his underwear intimidated me. His ease, his hedonistic ease, even as I had thought myself out of my body, intimidated me. I knew all along that this would be a problem. Seeming to read my mind, he pressed my crotch casually, and finding it soft, looked urgently at me, as if to say, ‘Come on, man. Thirdeen, fordeen, we’ll do it slowly…’
The begum sensed a disturbance behind her and looked back, perhaps thinking we were making fun of her again. Aakash was forced to act quickly. He pulled down his underwear, slipped his penis into the white latex he held in his fingers, and rising to the balls of his feet, pushed himself into the begum. Once he was inside her, he turned his attention back to me, draping one arm lightly over my shoulders for balance. He was no different from a man giving blood or urinating, and I stood next to him as though there for moral support. We made light conversation. I noticed a picture on the begum’s bedside of a young man in a silver frame. He was dark-skinned and fine-featured, with amber Nepalese eyes and a cruel smile.
‘Who’s that?’ I whispered to Aakash.
Aakash looked over, readjusting his balance.
‘Her son,’ he whispered, adding, ‘my double,’ with a smile.
But for the colour of his eyes, he looked nothing like Aakash. The begum must have heard us, must have felt Aakash move in her.
‘What’s all this khoospoos you’re doing?’ she snapped.
‘Nothing, Begum,’ Aakash yelled back. ‘Just pointing out the photo of your son.’
‘Oh,’ the begum said, and lowered her head. ‘Poor boy, working as a chowkidar.’
Aakash put both his thumbs to his temples and wiggled his fingers in a child’s gesture of defiance.
When he was near climax, he rested his arm on my shoulder and began again to massage the back of my neck. His rough wrinkly fingers pressed painfully as he came nearer an orgasm. When at last he pulled out, in one movement tearing off the condom and thumbing out long strands of semen over the begum’s back, I could hardly stand the pain. I pushed his hand away and he fell forward, dropping his body over the begum’s for a moment and laughing euphorically.
‘Slowly, slowly,’ the begum cooed, as if glad to finally have some physical contact.
‘Begum,’ Aakash said in a broken voice, ‘can I ask you something? You won’t take it badly?’
‘Tell me, baba.’
‘I’m starving. Is there anything to eat? Brad, butter, a desi omelette?’
‘Baba!’ the begum said indulgently. ‘Is this even something to ask for! Of course your begum will make you an omelette. You’ll take green chillis in it, no?’
‘Yes, Begum. You’re the best.’
The begum rolled Aakash off her back, rose agilely and picked her way past me.
I sat down on the bed next to Aakash. He pulled his jeans back on and sat up. I thought that he spoke indirectly to me when he said, ‘Don’t mind what happened earlier. I have this problem routinely in my life. When I get involved with someone, I burrow into their mind. They can’t get me out and they start behaving irrationally.’
‘What was this deep, dark secret she kept going on about?’
‘Nothing, man, nothing. She’s mad. But let’s leave all these serious things. We had fun, right?’
A few minutes later the begum appeared in the doorway with a plastic plate. As she handed it to him, Aakash looked up at her with adoring eyes. ‘Food cooked by Begum’s own hands,’ he muttered, using Bollywood lines as he tore up the omelette with his fingers. She rested her palm on his shoulder. He sat crouched over the omelette, rolling up the long shreds he’d made before putting them into his mouth. Then lips glistening, chewing noisily, he looked up at us with the glazed contentment of cattle drinking. His self-absorption was that of a man who would have been truly amazed to learn that either of us had any plans other than to watch him wolf down a post-coital omelette.
My phone beeped. Sanyogita. ‘Baby, off to bed. Will you be home soon?’ I put it away, feeling an urgent longing for her bed and her warm, sleepy presence near me, washing clean the night’s exposure. Aakash, licking his chops, looked resentfully over at the challenge to his centrality. The begum’s nails drooped off his shoulder. The Alsatian had also now nosed its way in, and with its head edgewise, sniffed, and began licking clean Aakash’s empty plate.
11
Delhi in that last week of May, despite the great heat, was filled with flowers. There were burnt orange blossoms on the gulmohar’s fern-like leaves, mauve tendrils fountaining from the jarul’s thatched canopy, and the blaze itself seeming to reside in the laburnum’s yellow flowers.
On my last afternoon I sat with Zafar, reading the Urdu newspaper. The affection that had grown between us had softened his insistence on teaching me to write. I’d mastered the script’s meaningful single and double dots and mysterious elisions, and had started reading well. But if I ever confused an ‘n’ with a ‘b’, he would croak irritably. If only I’d followed his advice and learned to write first, none of this would be a problem.
The newspaper was a thin, oily rag with splashes of bright colour and ink that blackened your fingers. The sessions with Zafar had reinforced my vocabulary in definite ways. I drank in ordinary words like ‘often’, ‘perhaps’,
‘unintentionally’ and ‘complete’. Simple words; easy to take for granted till lost and regained in another language. The newspaper offered them up daily, and reading it also became a way for Zafar and me to discuss the week’s events.
For months now the country had been seeing waves of new motiveless crime. In Bombay, there were the beer-can murders. A bearded jihadi wandered the city’s streets, hunting down homosexuals. His calling card was a can of Kingfisher left by the bodies of his victims. Ra was hysterical about copycat murders in Delhi, now seeing its own incidents of brand-new crime in its satellite towns. In Sectorpur there was a flesh-eating serial killer in whose oven the skeletal remains of women and children had been found. And in Phasenagar there was a double homicide. A fourteen-year-old girl had been found with her throat slashed while her parents slept in the next room. When the police arrived, ready to arrest the servant, they found him face down in a pool of his own blood. The death of their natural suspect threw their investigation into disarray. A day later, the girl’s father was arrested. He was said to have killed her for threatening to expose a wife-swapping arrangement with his best friend. The TV channels fed the public each detail in hourly intervals; the city was mesmerized. There was in the details an inexplicable…
‘… vehshat,’ Zafar offered.
‘What?’
‘Vehshat,’ he repeated.
The sound that gave the word its ring was ‘ehsh’. It had the same casual violence of words like lash and stash, but the ‘eh’ sound was less direct, less open, oblique somehow. It was a word that seemed to convey meaning before I knew what it meant; it rhymed with dehshat, terror, and began almost like vaishya, whore. But Zafar was stuck; he looked through three dictionaries without finding a synonym I could understand. The badly printed Urdu–English dictionary offered ‘wild’ and ‘savage’, but when I translated that back into Urdu for Zafar, he said that was wrong. We often ended up in these hopeless circles. I didn’t understand his Urdu explanations and he didn’t understand the dictionary enough to confirm or reject its synonym. So vehshat lingered, full of suggestiveness but without clear meaning. And yet it seemed so right, detonating from Zafar’s lips as soon as he read the newspaper. The power of its effect on both him and me, and the lack of a synonym to describe that effect, made Zafar say more.
The Temple-goers Page 10
