by Tim Ewins
Manjan didn’t use the phone either but not because it was sticky. Manjan didn’t use the phone because he didn’t want to. He didn’t know how to get hold of Ladyjan and he couldn’t think of anything positive to tell his parents.
Sometimes Kalem used the phone, but only to persuade Manjan to ring home. He would pick up the phone and thrust it at Manjan but Manjan never took it. Kalem’s hands were often sticky.
* * *
Knee-deep in the murky brown river, Manjan looked back to the bank, where he saw that Kalem had already stopped watching him and had started chatting to young boy. Kalem was looking proud.
‘Work hard,’ Manjan heard him lecture, ‘and you can have it all. You live here?’ The boy nodded. ‘You live in the best city in the world, my friend. You live with the divine and in the divine, and that will help you. God and Varanasi are on your side.’
Manjan looked back at the river that he was standing in. He was used to seeing it in darkness. Now, with the sun up, he was joined by crowds of people picking up water in cupped hands and splashing it onto their faces. Some were lying on their backs in the water while children were throwing water at each other and laughing. Behind him Manjan could hear Kalem go on.
‘Look at me young friend, I have worked hard in this city and I have a happy and fulfilling job. I pick up freshly caught fish off my best friend’ – he pointed at Manjan in the muddy river and Manjan waved back – ‘and I package them. I am the best at packaging here and so I am chosen to do it. God has been kind and he will be to you, too.’ Kalem looked at Manjan and shouted. ‘Get in all the way so that all your body is wet.’ Manjan laughed. ‘And have you brushed your teeth?’
Kalem really was a good person and Manjan did not deserve his friendship. Facing the river and away from the shore, Manjan bent his knees and felt the cool of the river high up his legs. Two years ago it would have bothered him that a few meters down the river they were burning dead bodies into the water but now he didn’t mind. He put his hands in the water and watched them instantly disappear under the surface. Shutting his eyes he lifted his hands up to splash his face and breathed out. Kalem clapped and cheered as the boy ran off.
Manjan’s toothbrush was worn and barely had any bristles left, but knowing it would make Kalem happy now he was finally washing in the river, he dipped the remaining bristles in the river, opened his mouth and brushed frantically. It tasted awful.
When Manjan opened his eyes he saw a dead bull floating past him on the other side of the river. He spat and gagged a little, while the man next to him made a disapproving noise before continuing to wash with his wife and three children. Nearby, a large moustachioed man started to brush his teeth. Manjan stared at the dead bull – why was no one fazed by it?
Back at the bank Kalem had started talking to an elderly lady about his love for the city and his wife. Sitting at the water’s edge, a young couple were washing each other’s arms and a huge middle-aged bearded man helped his mother slowly enter the river. Even the dead bull was joined by a stork, who was standing on the bull’s head. For the first time in a long time, Manjan acknowledged how he was feeling, and he found that how he was feeling was alone.
* * *
That evening Kalem stood outside the heavy red door of Manjan’s room as he did every night, waiting for Manjan to come out so they could get a drink. He hoped that Manjan would be a changed man after he had cleansed himself in the holy river. He hoped that he would be greeted by a happier Manjan.
The heavy red door didn’t open. Kalem knocked again and waited for a further half a minute before trying to push the door open. It was locked. He lifted himself up to the bars on the small square window at the top of the door. Pulling his face up so his nose was just above the lower edge of the window, he peered inside. There were no clothes strewn across the floor, the fan had been mended and Kalem thought he could smell air freshener wafting through the bars. Manjan wasn’t there.
Panicked, he ran downstairs. The man sitting behind the counter was listening to a man complain about the amount of paan spit on the floor in the showers.
‘They are broken,’ said the man sitting behind the counter, and he shrugged. ‘What does the paan matter?’ The complaining man got louder and the man sitting behind the counter shrugged again. He shrugged a lot.
‘What is happening in room 254?’ Kalem shouted above the complaining man. ‘Where is Jan, the man in 254? Has he gone?’
The man sitting behind the counter had completely forgotten the note that Manjan had left him to pass to Kalem. The note that said a long and heartfelt thank you. The man behind the counter shrugged.
* * *
The phone rang. Manjan’s father stood up from his armchair and walked over to the hall. It would probably be the florist.
‘Aye,’ he said. There was a couple of seconds’ silence.
‘Hello,’ Manjan said.
‘Aye? Who is this?’ There was a further pause but some pauses can be understood. ‘Jan?’ Manjan’s father asked without inferring a question, ‘Jan! How are you, lad?’
Manjan’s father asked questions solidly for a few minutes without leaving any space for answers. Where was Jan? Where had he been? Who was he with? How was he keeping? Manjan smiled. It had been a long time since he had heard his father’s northern English accent and he had missed it.
Once his father had settled down, Manjan began to answer the many questions. He didn’t lie, but he did pick which truth he wanted to tell. He told his father how he had been staying in a place called the Sunshine Hostel and mentioned what a beautiful name the hostel had. He talked about Kalem and Kalem’s wife and how thanks to them he now had a job. Manjan spoke about Varanasi the way he had heard Kalem talk about Varanasi. He told his father how the deceased were burnt into the river to escape the reincarnation cycle and to enter the afterlife and how the living bathed in the river to cleanse themselves of their sins.
‘I bathed in the river myself an hour ago,’ he exclaimed proudly.
‘Your accent has gone lad,’ Jan’s father said. He hadn’t heard his son’s voice in a long time and he was actively taking in every syllable. ‘You sound like you’re from many different places. Not Fishton at all.’ Manjan asked his father what country he sounded like he was from. ‘I don’t know lad. I can hear – I think I can hear, anyway – Swedish. Aye, there’s Swedish in there.’
Manjan paused in his tracks. He was unsure what to say. His father didn’t know about Ladyjan and his comment had taken him aback. But some pauses can be understood, so Manjan’s father changed the subject.
‘Tell me about your friend Kalem.’ Grateful for the diversion, Manjan told his father about how he and Kalem worked as a team to catch and sell food to the surrounding villages. He said he respected Kalem and that he was proud to work with him.
‘I drop the cages early – it’s still dark. Then Kalem collects them and packages them,’ he said.
‘Sounds technical,’ Manjan’s father agreed.
‘Kalem seems to think his role is very technical,’ Manjan continued, ‘but he’s very good at it.’
His father interrupted. ‘A specialist?’ he asked.
‘I suppose so,’ Manjan replied, unaware of the trap he was being led into.
‘Oh Jan,’ his father said in a mocking tone. Manjan had not missed this mocking tone and he prepared for a joke about an odd number of socks. ‘Kalem,’ his father continued, ‘is a box-packaging specialist and technician.’
Manjan quietly listened to his father laughing before asking to speak with his mother.
‘Oh.’ Manjan’s father stopped laughing abruptly. ‘Jan.’ For just a few seconds, time and everything in it stood still. ‘Your mother i…’ Manjan’s father paused, but some pauses can be understood.
Part 4
22
A cat
Fishton. England. 1975.
Jan’s father stood in the arrivals waiting room holding a cold battered fish with some soggy chips in a wet newspaper. He’d been standing there for an hour. He’d seen people his age returning from trips with floppy sun hats on their heads, he’d enviously watched reunited couples and he smiled in anticipation at other parents picking up their teenagers.
Jan wasn’t a teenager any more – he was twenty-three – but the last time his father had seen him he had been. This last week, Jan’s father had found himself wondering what Jan would look like when he saw him at the airport, and would he still be the chatty and inquisitive explorer he had always been, or would he be a sensible young adult? A lot can happen to a person in five years. Of course, he was certain that he would recognise his own son.
There hadn’t been any delay. Jan had rung his father thirty minutes before his plane had boarded and boarded thirty minutes after he had rung his father. Jan’s father had arrived at the airport an hour early because he didn’t want Jan to get home and for no one to be waiting for him. At least, he knew that Jan’s mother wouldn’t have wanted Jan to get home and for no one to be waiting for him. Jan’s mother would have told him to go early, so that’s what he did. That was pretty much why Jan’s father did anything now. That’s why he was holding a cold battered fish with some soggy chips in a wet newspaper. Jan’s mother would have told him to buy Jan a welcome-home gift. So he had.
‘Jan,’ he called as his son walked through the gate with no bag in his hands or shoes on his feet. Jan’s father felt his eyes well up and he felt embarrassed. He shuffled uncomfortably on his feet and called his son’s name again, on an inhaled breath, in an attempt to hide the tears.
Jan ran to his father and hugged him. They both cried, partly through joy and partly through grief, neither knew which.
‘You’ve grown a beard,’ Jan said into his father’s greying curly hair, without letting go. Although Jan’s father was aware of the harsh stubble all around the lower half of his face, he had not grown it intentionally, so he muttered an awkward ‘aye’. Jan could feel the grease from the cold fish and chips dripping down the back of his head.
A few moments later, with drying eyes, Jan said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He heard his father breathe in loudly through his nose and then out through his mouth.
‘You don’t need to be, lad,’ he said, ‘but you stink.’ Jan laughed as they released their embrace but his father’s face was straight. ‘No lad, you stink. You need a shower.’ He looked Jan up and down. His feet were yellowing and cracked, his legs were dusty and his clothes were filthy. Jan’s father couldn’t see the picture on Jan’s t-shirt either, because it had worn off from over-use or because of the mud it was caked in. Perhaps both. Jan’s face was creased beyond his twenty-three years and his hair was long and greasy (although the fish and chips could be partly blamed for this). More than anything, Jan was thin.
‘Got you some tea, lad,’ his father said, and passed Jan a cold battered fish and some soggy chips in a wet newspaper. Jan accepted them gratefully and held them by his side.
Jan and his father had a good relationship but they didn’t normally hug. Neither said anything for a while as they stood facing each other in arrivals. Jan wasn’t sure if he could handle mentioning his mother yet and he didn’t know whether his father could handle it either. Jan’s father didn’t mention Jan’s mother because Jan’s mother wouldn’t have wanted him to. Not yet. He gestured towards Jan’s bare feet.
‘Lost all five socks I see.’
‘I think I left three on the side.’
* * *
It would take Jan and his father three hours and twenty minutes to get home. The first ten minutes were spent hailing a taxi, the next five were spent searching for Jan’s father’s wallet and the following five were spent despairing over other items he’d lost while waiting for Jan’s plane to land.
‘My poxy passport,’ he said, emphasising nothing in particular with his hands in front of his chest. ‘Why take my poxy passport? So the culprit must look like me. Poxy…’ He stumbled through some other words that didn’t conjoin to make a sentence before adding, ‘and my torch.’
The next hour was spent talking fruitlessly with airport security, looking for someone who looked like Jan’s father, and then looking for a phone to call a friend of Jan’s father who would come to pick them up. So they sat on the curb outside the airport for another hour, and then the following one would be spent in the back and passenger seat of Jan’s father’s friend’s car, on their way home to 31 Western Crescent, Fishton.
While they waited for their lift to arrive, Jan’s father placed two of the plastic bags he always carried around with him on the pavement as protection for their bottoms against the wet. As they sat, they talked, grateful for the cold battered fish and soggy chips in wet newspaper.
‘How’s Hylad?’ Jan asked, after again relaying the countries he’d visited to his father.
‘Moved away,’ Jan’s father said. ‘Said he liked Sweden. Found a lady friend out there, I reckon.’
Jan nodded slowly with his bottom lip out further than his top. There was a short silence before he ventured into his next topic of conversation, a topic that neither of them had managed up to this point.
‘Dad,’ he said, ‘how are you doing?’ His tone gave the question more context than the words, and his father understood the meaning.
‘Aye,’ he replied, and then looked up. It had started to rain, but they were sheltered. ‘Y’know.’ Jan did know and he told his father as much. Quietly he spoke again.
‘Why do you carry plastic bags?’ he asked, ‘and why a torch?’ His father didn’t know.
‘Your mother always made me carry things,’ he said, as the rain picked up, ‘for emergencies.’ Jan looked at the bag he was sitting on and shivered. Northern England was colder than Northern India.
* * *
A small white paw patted at the top edge of the coffin. Then a black furry leg reached up, swiped at something that wasn’t there, and disappeared. A stifled titter could be heard in the congregation through the multitude of tears, but it wasn’t obvious who the offending noise came from.
A black tail with a white tip raised itself above the coffin and then zipped straight back down again in one smooth sharp movement. Jan’s aunt kept struggling to talk through sniffing and holding back her tears as a large cat leapt onto the coffin lid.
The cat was mostly black except for one white paw, the tip of her tail and half a stripe around her front leg and chest. She stuck her tail in the air, stretched her front paws out in front of her and yawned.
There was another titter in the congregation, and a now cleaner and healthier Manjan frowned. His father looked at him and gave a half-smile. One of those sad smiles that people give at funerals that seem to say, ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘it’ll be OK’ at the same time. Jan’s father’s smile said ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘it’s not the cat’s fault’ at the same time.
‘Cats do what they want,’ he whispered, as the cat lifted one of its hind legs up and licked its own private parts on top of Jan’s mother. ‘Your mother wouldn’t mind. She was the same.’
The cat jumped down from the coffin, proudly walked up to Jan’s father and rubbed her head on his leg. Jan stroked the cat’s ear and picked her up. Looking directly at the cat and with the cat looking directly at him, he focused – focusing on the cat helped him to hold his emotions back.
‘You’re the same, too,’ Jan’s father quietly said. ‘You do what you want, just like your mother.’
Jan’s father knew that his wife would have loved to have seen Jan before she died. Since they had lost contact with Jan he had spent sleepless nights comforting Jan’s mother that Jan would be well. He was probably exploring in a different country the way he used to explore Fishton, he told her. After weeks had turned into months Jan’s mother had started to believe him, or maybe she hadn’t, but th
ey had started talking about the adventures Jan might be having rather than the empty space ever-present at the table.
When Jan’s mother had fallen sick, she and her husband had spoken more firmly about how Jan was well and how he would be enjoying his life. They made up stories together about where he would be and what he would be doing. One day he would be riding a horse in the Middle East and the next he’d be climbing a Nepalese mountain. Jan’s mother had once suggested that he might have learnt chess.
‘Our lad would be crap at chess,’ Jan’s father had said, and they had laughed. The week before she died, in her eternally worried but loving voice, Jan’s mother had told Jan’s father that she was grateful that Jan had got to explore the world and that she knew he was OK.
‘He’s out there enjoying himself,’ she had said, ‘just as he should be.’ A week later Jan’s father stopped creating stories about what Jan might be doing. He had no one to share them with.
Jan’s face was stern. He continued to focus on the cat (although she had stopped looking at him) but his wet cheeks deceived the stare.
‘Jan,’ his father whispered. Jan continued to look at the cat but his father knew he could hear, ‘if you promise to ring me every week, I’ll pay for you to go back to India. For your mother.’ It hadn’t sounded like Jan had been having the experiences his mother had dreamed of. Jan’s father put his hand on Jan’s forearm. ‘You can come back any time you’re unhappy, but try to enjoy it.’
* * *
She had never expected to bump into Manjan nor had she expected to bump into any of his friends or family, but Ladyjan had the travelling bug, and from everything that Manjan had said, Fishton sounded wonderful.
