by Jeet Thayil
He opened the door of the bar and stepped out into the street but his legs didn’t obey him and he had to bend from the waist to keep from falling over. Bent double, he walked toward the main road. There was nothing moving at that time of night and unable to walk any further he sat heavily on the concrete bench of a bus stop and felt the bottle shatter in his pocket and a painless jab in his hip. He picked the broken glass out of his trousers and tried to catch whatever was available for salvage, managing to transfer to his mouth a small handful of whisky. His eyes closed and he thought he heard a small bird somewhere close and when the bird spoke he was only surprised it was in English.
“The air has eyes. It sees everything we do.”
Just then the sky began to lighten on a stretch of dug-up road where great shards of concrete pointed upward like glass. No wonder there had been no rickshaws: there was no road. He limped onward, his trousers wet with blood and whisky, and he came to a junction dominated by a Kannada film poster and there stood a man who was naked from the waist down, whose long hair was wet with lakewater, on his wrist a pink rakhee. The dead man said, why did you not ask yourself the obvious question?
“As in, who but a nutter would find himself in conversation with a dead one?”
“No, that question is not obvious, only uninteresting. The important question is, what does it mean when a drowned man is found without his trousers?”
“Ah,” Xavier said, as if he were about to sneeze. “I don’t mean to tremble so but I can’t seem to stop.”
“It means he was robbed and murdered. It means he did not drown himself as the police claim. It means he must choose someone in whom he can place his trust, some one person who will know the truth even if he or she is unable to act on it.”
Without warning, the tears came to Xavier’s eyes.
“I’m not that person,” he said.
“I am Santosh, state footballer of Kerala and lover of life, now expired.”
“Quite so.”
“There is no peace in death, only restless dreams.”
Then the dead man clasped Xavier to his wet black shirt and kissed him on both cheeks. As he walked away he pointed to a bridge.
“Go that way, you’ll know where you are.”
Xavier limped toward the bridge, which turned out to be a flyover, and beyond it was traffic and new sunlight and, most miraculous of all, a line of rickshaws waiting for business. On the ride home he wondered how it was that a hallucination had left such a genuine memento, for the dead man had been a creation of his mind but the wetness on his shirt was real. It was full day when he got out of the rickshaw and made a last stop before home. Hello, Dharini, a bottle of Grover La Reserve and two Khajurahos please, he said, leaning shakily against the counter. It occurred to him that he’d made a similar purchase some twenty-four hours earlier when all had seemed so hopeful with the world. How things had changed, in how short a span.
“Are you okay, sir? No, no. You’re bleeding.”
He was touched, there was no point denying that he was touched by her distress. It was a weakness: he missed the ministrations of women, the concern and the tears, even the contempt.
Dharini came around the counter with beer and wine and insisted on carrying the purchases home for him. She helped him up the stairs and found his key and opened the door. She found cotton wool and water and put antiseptic on his wound. Then she poured a glass of beer and helped him get comfortable on the sofa.
He took a long drink and said, thank you, I can’t tell you what a day it’s been, I—
And he was asleep.
4.
Dismas Bambai was in a restaurant on Saint Mark’s Road. The building had once belonged to the Bible Society of India whose name was still inscribed in stone above the entranceway. The room had high ceilings and new spotlights that illuminated the work on the roof tiles, careful work that had lain unnoticed for more than a hundred years until an American restaurant chain decided to restore the building. From the arched stone windows he looked upon a traffic jam that took up every inch of the road and much of the pavement. For ten minutes at a stretch the traffic was completely stationary and then it moved for a few minutes and then followed another period of inaction. When the waitress appeared he asked for a newspaper and the bill and she returned with a small pile of English language dailies. He thanked her and she stumbled slightly as she walked away. He read in the Hindoo that one of the world’s earliest television broadcasters was visiting India on a tour. The report quoted the broadcaster as saying that the standard of English had fallen on all programmes broadcast by the BBC, fallen terribly, to the extent that Indians and Irishmen spoke better English than Englishmen. On the edit page was a letter from a reader who accused the newspaper’s editors of being allergic to Brahmins. Why else would they compare Brahmins to Germans? The reader said the comparison was “most inept, odious, inappropriate and doltish, for when one sees the Nazi atrocities on film, one does not associate the citizens of modern Germany, but only those that went the whole hog with that mad fellow Hitler”. The reader’s language skills seemed to contradict the broadcaster’s opinion, Dismas thought, but perhaps not. The man’s English usage was strange but the English spoken in Britain was probably stranger. Then Dismas turned to the Hindoostan Times and read about a swami who thought the Gangotri glacier was receding so rapidly that it would disappear altogether in a few decades. When the glacier disappeared the river Ganga too would disappear, in the same way that rivers were disappearing all over the nation. But such a catastrophe was only to be expected, said the swami, because the disappeared river was in keeping with the prophecies of the holy books. For much of his life the eighty-nine-year-old swami had lived near Gangotri, the origin of the Ganga. He had noticed many changes in recent years, he said, but the most unexpected was how dirty the river had become, how discoloured and thin. Nowhere in the holy books was it recommended that we throw our sewage into it or that we throw garbage into it or wash our clothes in it. On the contrary we were asked to worship the river, which was holy, the source of all life. But, as he said, it was only to be expected in the interminably sinuous Kali Yuga. What confused him was the discrepancy in time. The prophecies said the Ganga would disappear in five thousand years, not fifty or forty or thirty, and he couldn’t imagine that the old ones would be so far wrong in their calculations. Then the swami smiled and asked to be forgiven for expecting God’s conception of time to conform to man’s. He posed a last question. What would be worse, death by water or the lack of water? The story ended with a phrase in Hindi, Ab meri Ganga maili, and Dismas turned the page. Between items about an actor’s latest haircut and the Airbus acquired by the head of a local liquor conglomerate he found a photograph of Goody and Xavier. She wore a white dress and held a glass of wine and a cell phone; he sported a straw hat and a moustache. They were smiling. To Dismas they seemed unreasonably cheerful.
The caption said: “IN HAPPIER TIMES. The bad-boy-turned-grand-old-man of Indian art is back in Bangalore. Newton Xavier and his friend Goody Lol were spotted at a lunch reception (see picture). Once dubbed ‘the 20th century’s last whiskey priest’, Mr Xavier has mellowed with time. These days he conspicuously consumes only water. How the mighty have fallen. Or have they? According to some birds in the know the X-Man was admitted to Asterion Hospital early this week following an extended binge. Watch this space for more details.”
When the waitress brought his bill he asked her how long it would take to get to Asterion Hospital. Less than twenty minutes, she replied. Dismas thought her voice sounded off. If she was right it gave him just enough time to meet Xavier and pay his respects and make his train.
“Excuse me, I feel sick,” she said. “It might take an hour.”
It took more than twenty minutes and less than an hour. The hospital resembled a business hotel with ‘Asterion’ in blue neon cursive at the top. Clock-faces in the lobby gave the time in various cities of the world but the cities appeared to have been chosen at r
andom. New York and London, but also Accra, Älmhult, and São Paulo. Dismas told a receptionist that he had come to see Mr Xavier. Visiting hours were over, she told him, but family members were allowed at any time. That’s me, Dismas replied, family member. The receptionist told him to follow an orderly who led him down a corridor to an exit and through a covered walkway into a smaller building. Here they came to a room that the man opened without knocking. He showed Dismas inside and shut the door.
Xavier was sitting in bed watching television while a young woman fed him soup. She whispered something in his ear and he flipped channels to a wrestling show. She laughed and said, fighting. There were fruit baskets and ashtrays on the bed, and chocolates, magazines, and clothes on the floor. The room looked like a honeymoon suite. Velvety bags of insomnia grew under Xavier’s eyes and his beard had filled out.
When he saw Dismas, he said, “What on earth.”
“I happened to be in Bangalore, passing through. Saw an item in the newspaper. They made it seem like you were at death’s door.”
“Indian newspapers and the truth are far removed. If anyone should know that, it’s you.”
“There was a photo of you and Goody.”
“Ah yes, that’s a name not spoken round these parts. Dharini doesn’t like it. Do you, dear girl?”
Dharini said, “It wasn’t a good picture, out-of-focus.”
Xavier winked at him, delighted.
He said, “Isn’t she splendid? Dharini, dear, get up and show us your new sari. Do a little twirl.”
The sari was sky-blue chiffon and she wore it carelessly, pallu twisted across her chest like a fat blue rope. She looked at Dismas through her fringe and shook her head. Then she shrugged and got up, full of misgiving. As soon as she had accomplished half a turn, awkwardly and without embarrassment, she sat down and primly she placed her hands in her lap. There was a small cut on her upper lip.
Xavier lit a cigarette with a disposable plastic lighter that said I ♥ KUWAIT. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled with a little sigh, but when a nurse came into the room his manner changed. I have to go up for an MRA scan, he said. Don’t try anything funny, you pantywaist Bombayman. I don’t want you speaking to her, you hear me? Where’re you going? Stick around.
Dismas stuck around; it was Dharini who spoke first.
“He talks about some poets who died this year, three poets one after the other.”
“That theory has been debunked. Conspiracy buffs said the killer was a poet who’d been excluded from their anthologies. Thoroughly debunked by the coroner’s reports. Cause of death natural in all three cases. Not a bad scenario though, I plan to use it myself.”
“He talks about death a lot. Sometimes he talks about you,” she said. “You tried to kill him once?”
Dismas giggled. He said, “No.”
“Mainly he talks about the party he wants to throw and of course Goody, says she’s an incarnation of Kali and she wants to add his head to her collection. She told him she wanted his skull if he died. Only if you love someone you say that. He doesn’t realise. It is love, but.”
She sat with her legs crossed and spoke distractedly as if none of it had any bearing on her life.
“I feel I know her because we both live in the same dynamic bubble. Her things are still in the cupboards. Her dresses are there. I think so we have the same shoe size. He likes to think she’s my enemy but I don’t. I understand her.”
She would not meet his eye and she kept adjusting the fringe that lay bushily on her forehead. For someone so young she seemed exhausted, beyond the reach of conversation or affection, and he noticed that the cut on her lip was fresh.
“Maybe you understand her better than you understand him. How long have you been together?” asked Dismas.
“Dismas and me? Not that long.”
“I’m Dismas.”
“Did I say Dismas? I meant Xavier, but. Obvious.”
“Slip of the tongue. When you say someone’s name like that it means he’s on your mind.”
“Don’t fool yourself. Only thing on my mind is the universe, nothing else, and phones. I want a cell phone. What are you staring at me for? You think I’m pretty?”
“What kind of phone?”
“I don’t care, a nice phone.”
“Do you like my Razr? What do you think of the striking aluminium exterior? And the slim form factor, isn’t it groundbreaking?”
“You think I’m pretty or not? Tell.”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
“Yes you have. It’s the only thing people think about when they see a woman. You see a man, you think about money. How much money does he have, how much power? But a woman, always, she’s pretty or she’s not. Do you think I’m pretty?”
“I think you’re almost pretty.”
“Almost.”
“Let me ask you something: Alicia Keys or Aaliyah, what’s your opinion?”
She pulled at her fringe but she could not straighten it to her satisfaction.
“For me it is Aaliyah,” he said. “It’s always Aaliyah.”
She said nothing and stared at the television at the foot of the bed. On the screen was a documentary unlike any he had seen. Bound men and women walked on a beach and some of them had white crosses tattooed or painted into their foreheads. After a while Dismas said he had better go, he had a train to catch. She stared at the screen; she ignored him; she did not look up when he left the room.
In the hallway, accompanied by a nurse, was Xavier in a wheelchair, his smock unbuttoned to the sternum, showing a bony chest shaved clean.
“Where’s Goody?” Xavier said. “Tell me where she is, you backstabbing git. I know you contrived the whole thing to run off with her and take my paintings. I have high-powered lawyers. I have more money than you. I’ll make you pay. Bloody hell, I will make you pay.”
It seemed to him that Xavier and Goody were made for each other, both obsessed with making people pay.
“Newton, I happened to be in town and I came to see you. I’m travelling around the country. I’m working on a book.”
“Why? So you can write my biography and make more money out of me? Nurse, call the police. This man is in cahoots with my former wife. They are trying to swindle me.”
The nurse said, “Okay, now, Mr Xavier, please calm down or I’ll have to give you a shot.”
“Look,” Xavier said in a sudden whisper, “that girl in there is a stopgap arrangement, my muse of the month, a merchant’s daughter, heir to the Noon Wines fortune. She is pure random chance but she’s all I can manage at the moment. I want Goody back.”
“You want Goody back.”
“That’s right,” he said, his voice suddenly very loud. He clapped himself on the chest. “I want her back, I, I, I.”
People had stopped to watch.
“Go to Infantry Road and tell her. She has my legacy and I want it back. She is my legacy.”
“I have a train to catch in an hour.”
“I have a train to catch,” he said, in a nasal effeminate version of Dismas’s tone. “Look around you. This isn’t a hospital, it’s a loony bin. They’re planning to electro-shock me, aren’t you, nursie dear? You hear me, Bambai? This isn’t art. This is life. There’s no escape. Wait here.”
The small group who had gathered to watch wandered off when Xavier disappeared into his room and the nurse pushed the wheelchair down the corridor. The blue ceiling lights flickered and stayed. There was a smell of antiseptic and something else, something older that wouldn’t wash out. In a while he emerged in street clothes and led the way to the exit, Dismas warily following.
“I will talk to Goody myself. I may be mad but I’m no fool.”
“And Dharini, what did you tell her? See you in ten minutes?”
“Twenty, twenty minutes.”
“Bravo, a little variation.”
“She’ll recover. She’s young, unlike yours truly.”
“Newton, I’ve bee
n wanting to tell you I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.”
“You were good to me in New York. You helped me out. I’m sorry I let you down.”
“You didn’t let me down. You betrayed me.”
“Sorry, that’s what I’m here to say.”
“Finally an apology. Well, it’s too little and too late.”
They rounded a corner into the lobby. A male nurse at the desk got up when he saw Xavier.
“The doctor has not discharged.”
“I’m discharging myself, old boy. Send my bill to the Department of Art and Culture, care of Government of India.”
The man picked up a phone. There was a form to be filled, he told Xavier. And his possessions, did he not want them back? Into the mouthpiece he said, please send Dr Virani to the registration desk. It stopped Xavier for a minute. What form? he asked the clerk. What possessions? The man put a printed sheet in front of him and slid a pen beside it. Registration form, he said. Xavier looked at it for a moment and took up the ballpoint and wrote very quickly. HOLY YS THE DRINKERE.
“Dr Virani,” said the nurse.
“Do you think the word ‘holy’ in its earlier incarnations ended with an ‘e’?” Xavier asked.
The nurse said, “Send Dr Virani, urgent.”
Xavier resumed his scribble.
HOLYE YS THE VAGABONDE SAINTE!
He tucked the pen into his pocket. Outside was the street. Outside was humidity and night and freedom. Dismas followed him down wide littered hospital steps.
