forward and swiveled sideways at the very end. He returned the comb to his pocket, stepped off the tins and put them back with the bottle and swab and broom. He bowed to them all. The whole shooting match. The bottle, the broom, the cans, the limp floorswab.
“Bow,” he said, and smiled, because when he was younger he had been under the impression that you had to say “Bow” when you bowed. That you had to say it to do it.
“Bow, Estha,” they’d say. And he’d bow and say, “Bow,” and they’d look at each other and laugh, and he’d worry.
Estha Alone of the uneven teeth.
Outside, he waited for his mother, his sister and his baby grandaunt. When they came out, Ammu said “Okay, Esthappen?”
Estha said, “Okay,” and shook his head carefully to preserve his puff.
Okay? Okay. He put the comb back into her handbag. Ammu felt a sudden clutch of love for her reserved, dignified little son in his beige and pointy shoes, who had just completed his first adult assignment She ran loving fingers through his hair. She spoiled his puff.
The Man with the steel Eveready Torch said that the picture had started, so to hurry. They had to rush up the red steps with the old red carpet Red staircase with red spit stains in the red corner. The Man with the Torch scrunched up his mundu and held it tucked under his balls, in his left hand. As he climbed, his calf muscles hardened under his climbing skin like hairy cannonballs. He held the torch in his right hand. He hurried with his mind.
“It started long ago,” he said.
So they’d missed the beginning. Missed the rippled velvet curtain going up, with lightbulbs in the clustered yellow tassels. Slowly up, and the music would have been “Baby Elephant Walk” from Hatan Or “Colonel Bogey’s March.”
Ammu held Estha’s hand. Baby Kochamma, heaving up the steps, held Rahel’s. Baby Kochamma, weighed down by her melons, would not admit to herself that she was looking forward to the picture. She preferred to feel that she was only doing it for the children’s sake. In her mind she kept an organized, careful account of Things She’d Done For People, and Things People Hadn’t Done For Her.
She liked the early nun-bits best, and hoped they hadn’t missed them. Ammu explained to Estha and Rahel that people always loved best what they Identified most with. Rahel supposed she Identified most with Christopher Plummer, who acted as Baron von Trapp. Chacko didn’t Identify with him at all and called him Baron von Clapp-Trapp.
Rahel was like an excited mosquito on a leash. Flying. Weightless. Up two steps. Down two. Up one. She climbed five flights of red stairs for Baby Kochamma’s one.
I’m Popeye the sailor man dum dum
I live in a cara-van dum dum lop-en the door
And fall-on the floor
I’m Popeye the sailor man dum dum.
Up two. Down two. Up one.Jump, jump.
“Rahel,” Ammu said, “you haven’t Learned your Lesson yet. Have you?”
Rahel had: Excitement Always Leads to Tears. Dum dum.
They arrived at the Princess Circle lobby. They walked past the Refreshments Counter where the orangedrinks were waiting. And the lemondrinks were waiting. The orange too orange. The lemon too lemon. The chocolates too melty.
The Torch Man opened the heavy Princess Circle door into the fan-whirring, peanut-crunching darkness. It smelled of breathing people and hairoil. And old carpets. A magical,
Estha had the tickets. Little Man. He lived in a caravan. Dum dum.
The Torch Man shone his light on the pink tickets. Row J. Numbers 17, 18, 19, 20. Estha, Ammu, Rahel, Baby Kochamma. They squeezed past irritated people who moved their legs this way and that to make space. The seats of the chairs had to be pulled down. Baby Kochamma held Rahel’s seat down while she climbed on. She wasn’t heavy enough, so the chair folded her into itself like sandwich stuffing, and she watched from between her knees. Two knees and a fountain. Estha, with more dignity than that, sat on the edge of his chair.
The shadows of the fans were on the sides of the screen where the picture wasn’t.
Off with the torch. On with the World Hit
The camera soared up in the skyblue (car-colored) Austrian sky with the clear, sad sound of church bells.
Far below, on the ground, in the courtyard of the abbey, the cobblestones were shining. Nuns walked across it. Like slow cigars. Quiet nuns clustered quietly around their Reverend Mother, who never read their letters. They gathered like ants around a crumb of toast. Cigars around a queen Cigar. No hair on their knees. No melons in their blouses. And their breath like peppermint. They had complaints to make to their Reverend Mother. Sweetsinging complaints. About Julie Andrews, who was still up in the hills, singing. The hills are alive with the sound of music, and was, once again, late for Mass.
The nuns sneaked musically.
Her dress has got a tear
She waltzes on her way to Mass
And whistles on the stair…
People in the audience were turning around.
“Shhh!” they said.
Shh! Shh! Shh!
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair
There was a voice from outside the picture. It was clear and true, cutting through the fan-whirring, peanut-crunching darkness.
There was a nun in the audience. Heads twisted around like bottle caps. Black-haired backs of heads became faces with mouths and mustaches. Hissing mouths with teeth like sharks. Many of them. Like stickers on a card.
“Shhhh!” they said together. It was Estha who was singing. A nun with a puff. An Elvis Pelvis Nun. He couldn’t help it.
“Get him out of here!” The Audience said, when they found him.
Shutup or Getout. Getout or Shutup.
The Audience was a Big Man. Estha was a Little Man, with the tickets.
“Estha for heaven’s sake, shut UP!!” Ammu’s fierce whisper said. So Estha shut UP. The mouths and mustaches turned away. But then, without warning, the song came back, and Estha couldn’t stop it.
“Ammu, can I go and sing it outside?” Estha said (before Ammu smacked him). “I’ll come back after the song.”
“But don’t ever expect me to bring you out again,” Ammu said. “You’re embarrassing all of us.”
But Estha couldn’t help it. He got up to go. Past angry Ammu.
Past Rahel concentrating through her knees. Past Baby Kochamma.
Past the Audience that had to move its legs again. Thiswayandthat.
The red sign over the door said EXIT in a red light. Estha EXITed.
In the lobby, the orangedrinks were waiting. The lemondrinks were waiting. The melty chocolates were waiting. The electric blue foamleather car-sofas were waiting. The
Estha Alone sat on the electric blue foamleather car-sofa, in the Abhilash Talkies Princess Circle lobby,
