He remembered his carefree days, before he was tied down to a house and to Madam-and he became resentful at having lost his freedom. He left early, shortly before midnight, saying that he had something to take care of at the house. On the way back, he staggered drunkenly, singing a Konkani song; but another pulse had started to throb beneath the lighthearted film number.
As he drew near the gate, his voice dropped down and died out, and he realized he was walking with exaggerated stealth. He wondered why, and felt frightened of himself.
He opened the latch of the gate soundlessly, and walked toward the back door of the house. He had been holding the key in his hand for some time; bending down to the lock and squinting at the keyhole, he inserted it. Opening the door carefully and quietly, he walked into the house. The heavy washing machine lay in the dark, like a night watchman. In the distance wisps of cool air escaped from a crack in the closed door of her bedroom.
George breathed slowly. His one thought, as he staggered forward, was that he must avoid walking into the washing machine.
“Oh, God,” he said suddenly. He realized that he had banged his knee into the washing machine and the damn machine was reverberating.
“Oh, God,” he said again, with the dim, desperate consciousness that he had spoken too loudly.
There was a movement; her door opened, and a woman with long loose hair emerged.
A cool air-conditioned breeze thrilled his entire body. The woman pulled the edge of a sari over her shoulder.
“George?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
He said nothing. The answer to the question was at once vague and full of substance, half obscure but all too present, just as she herself was. He almost knew what he wanted to say; she said nothing. She had not screamed or raised the alarm. Perhaps she wanted it too. He felt that it was now only a matter of saying it, or even of moving.
“Get out,” she said.
He had waited too long.
“Madam, I-”
“Get out.”
It was too late now; he turned around and walked quickly.
The moment the back door closed on him, he felt foolish. He thumped it with his fist so hard that it hurt. “Madam, let me explain!” He pounded the door harder and harder. She had misunderstood him-completely misunderstood!
“Stop it,” came a voice. It was Maria, looking at him fearfully through the window. “Please stop it at once.”
At that moment, the immensity of what he had done struck George. He was conscious the neighbors might be watching. Madam’s reputation was at stake.
He dragged himself up to the construction site, and fell down there to sleep. The next morning, he discovered he had been lying, just as he had done months before, on top of a pyramid of crushed granite.
He came back, slowly. Maria was waiting for him by the gate.
“Madam,” she called as she went into the house. Mrs. Gomes came out, her finger deep into her latest novel.
“Maria, go to the kitchen,” Mrs. Gomes ordered, as he walked into the garden. He was glad of that; so she wanted to protect Maria from what was coming. He felt gratitude for her delicacy. She was different from other rich people; she was special. She would spare him.
He put the key to the back door on the ground.
“It’s okay,” she said. Her manner was cool. He understood now that the radius had increased; it was pushing him back every second he stood. He did not know how far back to go; it seemed to him he was already as far back as he could be and hear what she was saying. Her voice was distant and small and cold. For some reason, he could not take his eyes off the cover of her novel: a man was driving a red car, and two white women in bikinis were sitting inside.
“It’s not anger,” she said. “I should have taken greater precautions. I made a mistake.”
“I’ve left the key down here, madam,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The lock is being changed this evening.”
“Can I stay until you find someone else?” he blurted out. “How will you manage with the garden? And what will you do for a driver?”
“I’ll manage,” she said.
Until then, all his thoughts had been for her-her reputation in the neighborhood, her peace of mind, the sense of betrayal she must feel-but now he understood: she was not the one who needed taking care of.
He wanted to speak his heart out to her and tell her all this, but she spoke first.
“Maria will have to leave as well.”
He stared at her, his mouth open.
“Where will she sleep tonight?” His voice was thin and desperate. “Madam, she left everything she had in our village and came here to live with you.”
“She can sleep in the church, I suppose,” Mrs. Gomes said calmly. “They let people in all night, I’ve heard.”
“Madam.” He folded his palms. “Madam, you’re Christian like us, and I’m begging you in the name of Christian charity, please leave Maria out of-”
She closed the door; then he heard the sound of it being locked, and then double-locked.
He waited for his sister at the top of the road, and looked in the direction of the unfinished cathedral.
DAY SIX: THE SULTAN’S BATTERY
HE WALKED QUICKLY toward the white dome of the Dargah, a fold-up wooden stool under one arm, and in the other a red bag with his album of photographs and seven bottles full of white pills. When he reached the Dargah, he walked along the wall, not paying any attention to the long line of beggars: the lepers sitting on rags, the men with mutilated arms and legs, the men in wheelchairs, the men with bandages covering their eyes, and the creature with little brown stubs like a seal’s flippers where he should have had arms, a normal left leg, and a soft brown stump where he should have had the other leg, who lay on his left side, twitching his hip continuously, like an animal receiving galvanic shocks, and intoning, with blank, mesmerized eyes, “Al-lah! Al- laaaah! Al-lah! Al-laaah!”
He walked past this sorrowful parade of humanity, and went behind the Dargah.
Now he walked past the vendors squatting on the ground in a long line that extended for half a mile. He passed rows of baby shoes, bras, T-shirts bearing the words NEW YORK FUCKING CITY, fake Ray-Ban glasses, fake Nike shoes and fake Adidas shoes, and piles of Urdu and Malayalam magazines. He spotted an opening between a counterfeit-Nike seller and a counterfeit-Gucci seller, unfolded his stool there, and placed on it a glossy black sheet of paper with gold lettering.
The golden words read:
RATNAKARA SHETTY
SPECIAL INVITEE
FOURTH PAN-ASIAN CONFERENCE ON SEXOLOGY
HOTEL NEW HILLTOP PALACE NEW DELHI
12-14 APRIL 1987
The young men who had come to pray at the Dargah, or to eat lamb kebabs in one of the Muslim restaurants, or simply to watch the sea, began making a semicircle around Ratna, watching as he added to the display on the stool the photo album and the seven bottles of white pills. With grave ceremony, he then rearranged the bottles, as if their position had to be exactly right for his work to begin. In truth, he was waiting for more onlookers.
They came. Standing in pairs or alone, the crowd of young men had now taken on the appearance of a human Stonehenge; some stood with their hands folded on a friend’s shoulder, some stood alone, and a few crouched to the ground, like fallen boulders.
All at once, Ratna began to talk. Young men came quicker, and the crowd became so thick that it was two or three men deep at each point; and those at the back had to stand on their toes to get even a partial glimpse of the sexologist.
He opened the album and let the young men see the photos in plastic folders inside. The onlookers gasped.
Pointing at his photographs, Ratna spoke of abominations and perversions. He described the consequences of sin: he demonstrated the passage of venereal germs up the body, touching his nipples, his eyes, and then his nostrils, and then closing his eyes. The sun climbed the sky, and the white dome of the Dargah shone more brightly. The young men in the semicircle pressed against one another, straining to get closer to the photographs. Then Ratna went in for the kill: he shut the book and held up a bottle of white pills in each of his hands. He began shaking the pills.
“With each bottle of pills you will receive a certificate of authenticity from Hakim Bhagwandas of Daryaganj in Delhi. This man, a greatly experienced doctor, has studied the wise books of the pharaohs, and has used his scientific equipment to create these magnificent white pills that will cure all your ailments. Each bottle costs just four rupees and fifty paise! Yes, that is all you need to pay to atone for sin and earn a second chance in this life! Four rupees and fifty paise!”
In the evening, dead tired from the heat, he boarded the 34B bus with his red bag and fold-up stool. It was packed at this hour, so he held on to a strap and breathed in and out slowly. He counted to ten, to recover his strength, then dipped a hand into the red bag, taking out four green brochures, each of which bore the image of three large rats on the cover. He held the brochures up high in one hand, in the manner of a gambler holding up his cards, and spoke at the top of his voice:
“Ladies and gentlemen! All of you know that we live in a rat race, where there are few jobs and many job applicants. How will your children survive, how will they get the jobs you have? For life in this day and age is a veritable rat race. Only in this booklet will you find thousands of useful general knowledge data, arranged in question-and-answer form, that your sons and daughters need to
