Garden of dreams, p.18
Garden of Dreams, page 18
Back at the top of the steps, the crowd was swelling and they were jostled along together towards a dark building. Three-storey, plain, windowless, without the carvings of the others. They paused at an open door, on the side, and peered in: too dark to enter. There was pigeon shit in the corner lit by a lone shaft of sunlight.
‘Vhat is that?’ Katya asked.
‘I don’t know. It looks empty.’
‘You want to see the hospice?’ came a high, insinuating voice behind them. ‘Very special. Not many know this place.’
It was a boy about his age, smartly dressed in a short-sleeved, blue-checked shirt and freshly pressed jeans, white socks and a pair of probably knock-off Nikes. He looked pretty nerdy but not harmful. Katya looked at him closely. ‘Ve don’t have much money.’
‘Don’t worry ’bout the money, honey. Rajendra won’t make a dime for a good time.’
‘Vhat?’
‘With me, best tour – for sure. You pay what you like.’
Katya shook her head. ‘I’ve heard zat one before.’
‘For sure …’ Rajendra said, and they all laughed.
‘Seriously, you like, you give me something,’ he continued, holding up his arm to shepherd them through the dark door. ‘You don’t, you won’t.’
As they climbed the dank stone staircase into the light of the first floor, walking out on to the veranda that rounded the building, Rajendra rattled on. ‘This hospice? It is where people come to die. Sick people. They come here because they want to be here, close to the Ganga, when they go.’
‘But where are they all?’ asked Eli.
‘Only one person left in this hospice now,’ Rajendra said, leaning against the veranda wall for a second, then brushing the seat of his jeans as he stepped away. ‘An old woman, very old, more than a hundred years. We can go see her?’
‘Take us, ya,’ Katya said.
They went back inside to the dim staircase and climbed up to the top floor. Rajendra led them down a hallway of closed doors; Eli didn’t want to imagine what was behind them. They stopped at the door at the far end, on the right-hand side, and Rajendra knocked, saying something in Hindi. There was no response so he knocked again, answered by a thin voice like the cry of a wounded creature.
It must have said ‘come in’ because Rajendra pushed open the door.
The room was also dark; sunlight filtered through louvred blinds, all closed. It smelled like an attic. Worse. Airless. In one corner of the room, on a cot like a prisoner’s, sat a small, hunched form in a plain indigo sari and headscarf. A wooden cane lay at her feet, and not far off was a small gas burner bearing a blackened pot, full of dark liquid. A small, sharp knife lay on a sheet of newspaper on the floor, along with some sliced ginger.
‘Why does she stay in the dark?’ Eli whispered to Rajendra.
‘She’s always in the dark, my friend,’ Rajendra whispered back. ‘She’s blind.’ Then he said something in Hindi, aloud. ‘I told her she has some visitors.’
‘Mere paas lao,’ said the old woman, lifting herself off the cot very slowly and reaching for the cane on the floor.
‘Come closer,’ Rajendra beckoned them towards the woman.
When she stood before them Eli could see her sightless eyes, milky and thick with cataracts. Her face was as wrinkled as an apple doll’s, her hair as white as cotton batting. It looked as if she had no teeth, but he couldn’t be sure. The eyes scared him, glaring at him like two ghostly headlights. She reached out to touch his face, and he jumped.
‘Kaun hai?’ she said, stepping closer to him.
Eli stood still and let the gnarled hand with long, brown nails wander over his forehead, down his nose, across his cheeks, under his jaw, grazing his mouth. He thought he was going to faint. The old woman was chanting something as she did this; he had no idea what. The last place she touched was his eyelashes, stroking them delicately.
‘Tumhari thuddi ladke jaisi aur palakein ladkiyon jaisi,’ she said, loudly.
‘She says you have the chin of a boy but the eyelashes of a girl,’ Rajendra said, smiling.
‘And me?’ asked Katya, stepping towards the woman.
The woman did the same to her, tracing her ancient finger over the girl’s flawless forehead, flippant nose and luscious mouth, where the finger lingered.
‘Yeh bohot bada premi hai!’ the woman said.
‘Vhat she’s saying?’ Katya asked.
‘She says, this one is a great lover!’
‘Ha!’ Katya slapped one leg of her pyjama pants. ‘I like zat.’
‘Never bother a lover till it’s over,’ Rajendra grinned.
This guy was getting on his nerves.
‘Ve must give her some food, ja?’ said Katya, reaching into her woven bag and pulling out a greasy packet of something. ‘Sorry, this is all vhat I have.’
The woman grabbed for it, missing at first but then seizing the packet in her claw. She ripped the paper open and stuffed the samosas into her mouth, whining as she did so. Then she turned away from them and returned to the shadows on her bed.
‘Tell her, ve bring more food later, tomorrow,’ Katya said.
‘Hum khana lekar aayenge,’ said Rajendra, but the old woman didn’t seem to hear him. He repeated it, more loudly, and she wiggled her head ‘yes’.
Rajendra led them out the door and began walking fast, for some reason nearly running. As they raced down the dark hallway, down countless fetid steps and out the side door again into the blinding light, Eli wondered what the woman’s name was, and how long she had been there.
‘So, you like?’ Rajendra smiled at them. ‘It wasn’t bad, made you glad, even rad, best time you ever …’
‘I like, yes, it vas good. Good to see like this, the real India.’ Katya handed Rajendra a fifty-rupee note, dirty as they all were. He turned it over in his palm, then sniffed it.
‘And you?’ Rajendra’s pink palm lay open before him.
‘Fifty rupee enough!’ Katya waved Rajendra away. ‘Come with me, Eli.’ She marched off from Manikarnika, towards the main ghat; he had to jog to keep up with her. When he turned around Rajendra was still watching them.
As they reached the ghats again, dodging a herd of water buffalo and fresh piles of buffalo shit, he remembered. Ashok. Customers. The boat. He had no idea how much time had passed, but the sun was now nearly overhead, so perhaps an hour, maybe more. When Ashok’s boat came into view, still at its mooring, he could see him slumped in the stern with newspapers over his head like an awning.
‘How about a boat ride?’ he asked Katya, busy deflecting tiny boys and girls coming up to her, to them, with offers of postcards and requests for pens. ‘I know the boat guy.’
‘Ya, vhy not? Zat way we can get away from all these little buggers.’
He would pay for the ride if she didn’t offer, he decided.
He jumped on Ashok’s boat, with the guitar, and offered his hand to Katya. She leapt on gracefully, but the two of them grabbed each other when the boat started rocking. Ashok sat up and whipped off the newspapers. ‘Where were you, on your honeymoon?’
‘Katya, Ashok, Ashok, Katya.’ That was enough. To his relief Katya reached into her pocket and brought out a little wad of rupees.
‘How much for vone hour?’ She started shuffling the limp notes.
‘Three hundred rupees, special price.’ Ashok grinned, at Katya, then at him, and raised his eyebrows. He hoped Katya had missed that.
‘Too expensive, don’t you zink?’ she asked him.
‘Not really.’ Though it was. But he figured she could afford it.
‘OK then.’ Katya stepped gingerly forward and sat down on the middle seat. He wished she at least had a cushion.
‘Perfect,’ said Ashok, standing in the stern and about to push them off with one oar. ‘Eli, untie the line in front.’
He released them from the mooring and sat in the bow, facing Katya and Ashok behind her. Ashok pushed them backwards then headed, again, towards Manikarnika. ‘You see Manikarnika yet?’ he asked Katya. ‘Very famous.’
‘Many times,’ Katya said, not looking at him. ‘Take us somevhere else.’
Ashok put a finger to his temple in mock suicide. ‘Like vhere?’ Ashok said, imitating the accent. Eli prayed Katya wouldn’t notice. ‘OK, I take you to the very northern ghats, and then we come back.’
They consented, having no idea where they were going, but glad to be on the river; he always loved it, and Katya seemed happy to be there. She dragged a finger through the water, humming as Ashok pulled the oars rhythmically, as if he’d been doing this all his life. He probably nearly had. As they pulled away from shore, Eli was lulled by the rowing, by the current of the river, by Katya’s humming. He was mesmerised by her pierced belly button when she grasped the gunwales and leaned back, her face to the sun.
When another boat pulled up parallel to them, still ten or so metres off, one of the two passengers, both Indian men in pale pathan suits, both wearing sunglasses, snapped a photograph of Katya. She didn’t notice. When they took several others, he began to feel protective and wanted them to stop. But they were too far away to bother about it.
She stopped humming and smiled at him, working her bare feet over his Adidas and up to his ankles; her toes were like butterflies against his skin. ‘It’s good, ya?’
He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but yes, it was good. All of it. If only they could stay on the river indefinitely. But Sanjana and the other girls would be waiting for him. He had made a promise, to take them back. Now he was beginning to wonder if they could make it without him. They probably could – Sanjana was a fierce one. The younger girls would do whatever they were told. He looked at Katya, and thought she was growing more beautiful by the second. The soft wind off the river blew her scent to him, a heady blend of spices.
When they pulled up to the mooring a long hour later, he felt drugged. Katya seemed so, too. Ashok, though, was animated, slapping his three hundred rupees against one palm and winking at him. ‘You come another time, OK?’
She wanted to show him where she was staying, she said, it wouldn’t take long. Better than showing her their little camp at Assi Ghat. They walked through the warren of streets behind Dashashwamedh, past cramped houses of blue-violet, rust and gold, down dirt and stone alleyways covered in litter and sewage. People actually living in these places: a boy repairing the wheel of his bicycle in the street; a man with a baby in one arm and with the other frying gulab jamun in a big spitting pot outside his front door; a parfumier trying to lure customers inside, waving little open vials at them as they passed. Finally they came to a backpackers’ lodge, Swami’s, a two-storey building with construction on the roof and some long-haired guests on the front steps, smoking. The two of them walked through a haze of marijuana as they entered.
Inside, down a deserted, narrow corridor, painted bright green with handprints of different colours, Katya led him by the hand. She stopped at a door, found the key in her pocket and led him in. The only window let in a small patch of light, falling on an unmade single bed and clothes strewn all over the room. An ashtray on the floor held the remains of at least a dozen cigarettes, or joints. There was nowhere to sit, except the floor or the bed, so he remained standing.
Without saying a word she stripped off her top and her pyjama pants, letting them fall to the floor. She faced him wearing only a skimpy black lace thong. Her breasts were perky, just a perfect handful, and he looked into her eyes for a second, then looked away.
‘Shall we rest a beet?’ she said, stepping closer, kissing his eyelids lightly, drawing him down towards the bed.
He let her pull him, nearly lay down with her. But his gut contracted, he felt sick, unnerved, so he slipped from her arms, stepping back towards the door.
‘You are a wirgin!’ Katya sat up, cradling her breasts.
He was sad it was so obvious. But how old did she think he was?
There was nothing to say, really, so he backed out of the door, leaving her sitting there, and ran down the hall, towards the front exit. Just before he reached it, he noticed an open door that had been closed before.
It was some sort of office, not a guest room. Not much furniture, a big poster board on the wall. Inside were two men talking to someone behind the door. It was them – the two men in the pathan suits, with the shades, still on, from the boat on the river.
Funny place for a couple of dudes like them to stay, he thought, as he felt the relief of stepping out the front door and away from there.
Chapter 25
When he woke the next morning to the bothersome cries of crows in the trees, Shanti and Deevyah had gone to the temple. As the crimson sun rose from the river, rousing the beggars around them, only the heap that was Sanjana lay next to him, under her fading pink shawl. Her dirty feet stuck out from one end and he marvelled that the tiny red stone in the toe ring, not possibly a ruby, still sparkled. He thought he should wake her, to go help the other girls with the temple garlands, but she was coughing badly, wracking her body. He reached out and gently massaged her back, hoping to let her dream a while longer.
What are your dreams? she had asked him once, back at the kotha.
That was easy, at the time. To be a guitar hero, a real rock superstar. Not another Slash but something like him, without the drugs. And – should he say it? To have a whole family, not just a part of one.
Becoming a kickass guitarist seemed much more likely, then.
I want to help girls like me, she had said. Whose lives have been very hurt.
Would they get there?
Like a corpse come back to life, Sanjana turned, stripped off her shawl and sat up. ‘You! Don’t touch!’
‘You were coughing …’
‘You can’t have anybody you want.’ Her almond eyes looked murderous.
‘What are you talking about?’
Sanjana just sat there, arms crossed, legs crossed, staring towards the river. He felt steam rising from her body.
‘What are you talking about?’ he repeated.
‘Just go to work. Maybe you meet another girl today.’
Katya. She must have seen them together. It was nothing and he didn’t want to talk about it, especially what happened at the backpackers’.
Sanjana eyed him up and down as he knelt to roll up his bedding, then huffed, ‘You don’t want to see what we find?’
Impossible. What he liked most about Sanjana, her tenaciousness, often irritated him too.
He stood to gain the advantage. ‘OK, what? What is it?’
She reached under her butt, under her blanket, and pulled out a rumpled sheet of newspaper.
It was in Hindi, script his eye was getting used to but still couldn’t comprehend, strange, bursting flowers on the page. But five photographs needed no translation. Four smaller ones, mug shots, of Ravi and the girls. One large one of him, taken where? His shoulders were bare and he wasn’t looking at the camera. It made him feel sick.
‘Where did you find this?’ He gave the newspaper back to Sanjana, who buried it beneath her again. ‘When?’
‘Yesterday, outside temple,’ she said, still not standing. Holding her ground. Lowering her voice. ‘They looking for us.’
‘Who?’
‘Police in Delhi. This says call this number at police headquarters. For information.’
‘With information.’
‘Shhhh! People are looking.’
It was true. Three beggar women in tattered saris and large nose rings, like bulls, he thought, were staring as they sorted through their tins of rice on a filthy sheet. Even the beggar’s monkey was looking at them intently.
‘Is there a reward?’ he asked. Maybe his parents had offered one. At last.
‘No reward,’ Sanjana said, sternly. ‘Now go work, so we can have money for leaving!’
Wary, he turned to go, but felt something ping off the back of his calf. A pair of black sunglasses, racy like a gangster’s, lay at his feet.
‘You wear those,’ Sanjana ordered. He didn’t ask where she got them.
No reward. As he walked towards the main ghat and Ashok’s boat, he wondered what his life was worth. And to whom it might be worth something. He obviously wasn’t worth a dime to all these strangers. Was he?
Ashok was onshore talking to some other boatmen when Eli arrived at Dashashwamedh Ghat. Waving. And when he got closer: ‘Who are you today, James Bond?’
‘Sorry I’m a bit late, Ashok.’ He wasn’t. Late or sorry.
‘For that you can go buy me some paan, chutiya.’ Ashok handed him a ragged ten-rupee note. ‘And hurry back! Bring customers!’
He headed towards a kiosk at the far end of the ghat, where a thick crowd was milling, pilgrims, sadhus, beggars, children, tourists, men in pathan and grey Western suits. All elbowing and shoving to get a better look. At what?
Then he saw her, rising above the heads of the crowd like that Venus coming out of the shell. She must have been on a platform or something, because she stood above all of them, posing like a movie star, with cameras going off all around her, pro ones with long lenses. People were waving and trying to touch her, but several hunks, security no doubt, guarded the base of the platform or whatever she was standing on, like giant bees with their identical dark glasses. Ready to sting. The woman, Indian, with waves of black hair, gold lavished on her neck, ears and arms, and a white satin dress that shaped her like a mermaid, removed her own oversized sunglasses and seemed to look right at him. For a very long second. Then she turned back to the cameras.
He made his way around the periphery of the crowd, behind the famous woman, to the kiosk. People were backed up nearly this far, barefoot in soiled dhotis, all craning at the superstar.
‘It’s a Filmfare photo shoot,’ said the man in the kiosk, framed by its small window. Eli still didn’t know his name, but his little wire-rimmed glasses were like Gandhi’s. ‘Big star, that one. Good fun for her, obviously, showing off how filthy rich she is amidst all these who have nothing.’
‘What, you bring no one?’ Ashok shouted when he reached the boat and threw the paan to him. ‘Take those glasses off, I think you are scaring people.’
