by Jerry
“Or a cab,” he said. “I thought she would drive me someplace in this world. Didn’t know where. Didn’t care how. I just wanted her there with me.”
Tinkling laughter again, merry as a clarinet.
“Come here,” he said. He reached to pull her down to the floor but she dodged his fingers. When finally he straddled her, holding her down on the floor with naked knees, they were both helpless with mirth.
And then it was too cosy. He didn’t like it. In the awkwardness that followed, he reached for words to fill the awkwardness. Tiny talk, thoughts, distractions . . . They eluded him, perhaps because the candy eyes were serious. They sucked him in with something finer, something that frightened him. He realised with dismay that she had broken her rule. The agreement was simple: no absolutes. But she had fallen in love. Sugar was in love with him. He couldn’t herald it, allow her to express it. Had he guessed of this turn at the start of their liaison, there would have been more trepidation in his bite. He didn’t know how to improvise. Or be adventurous. And he simply couldn’t love.
He blinked once. Twice. Huge silence. A raging headache drummed a beat in his head. A flutter in his heart, and Sugar dropped her gaze. A great deal of hesitancy and sadness lingered in her smile.
“Oh, hell,” she said. “Get up. You look like a medically induced comma.”
She understood. Though her candy eyes now looked like tired woman eyes, flat eyes like Saturday after Good Friday, she understood. Liam’s headache dissolved. And for the first time since he started seeing her, he took her in his arms and made love to her. Actually made love. A gentle hum of bed, a soft sigh accompanied him each time he shifted his weight in a tender grind of groin. It was gentle, sweet, uncharged. Smooth as powder when he landed it.
Nestled in his arms, Sugar wept.
“If you start at a hundred,” she said, “then you’ve got no more place to go. You kiss like heaven.” Her eyes were no longer flat. They were deep, almost calm. Her voice was sad as an oboe.
“Don’t be a stranger, hey champ,” she said at the door, clinging to his chest.
Liam’s heart, his emotions, his head could not cope with Sugar. She was far too deep. He wanted simplicity that risked no pain.
No absolutes.
He found Meredith in the mauve pages under ‘G’: Gentleman’s escort.
She was never sweaty or ruffled or reddened by sex. Meredith was star quality. A pro. He couldn’t saunter to her beachcomber villa in Affleck Boulevard—where organic roses grew tall, a continental Queen bed stood polished on Tasmanian oak, and a granite/ sandstone fireplace displayed its beauty—any time of day or night. Meredith took only pre-bookings. She was a masterpiece. Loved hand-packed bite size chocolates, sometimes vintage bubbly. She offered exclusive, expensive quality, promised satisfaction, asked no questions and demanded that none be asked of her.
If he were hungry, she might prepare him something: truffles, mimosa, langoustine or white-shell chowder. All was well as long as, fed and watered, he did not succumb to a terrible impulse to reminisce, talk about or prompt personal history. During sex, she lay unruffled. A cool new face of iridescent beauty. She held her hand delicately to the small of his back, as though they were dancing to a waltz at a Queen’s ball.
Later, if Liam floated naked in her marble bathtub or laid hands at the back of his head on a braided mattress, brooding into space, she let him. She only glanced at her watch when time was up or nearly up. Liam soon learnt to pre-empt the clock: There goes the hootie, he would think, moments before her eyes sought the dial.
She wore sleek black skirts and fluffed wind-swept hair around a powdered face; always looked like she was going to the Oscars. The villa had a fire crackling hearth, natural light, a granite kitchen, marble bench tops . . . An ivory carpet, dovetail drawers, Holland blinds, English brass handles, jade ornaments, Dutch Masters wall replicas in seamless spacing, swathed drapery. Class and finery.
One day, it dawned upon him: He had thumbed the yellow pages and found a whore who looked like Audrey. Who dressed like Audrey. Who moved like Audrey. Who had genetically harvested timber Venetians just like those in Earth. Who spoke in a china-cup fragile way. Who fucked like a Queen’s waltz.
Meredith was so like Audrey, and that made her safe—unlike Sugar who had dared love him. Liam paused with that thought, holding a red box chocolate selection (bite size) in his hands. Turmoil and yearning filled every space of him, right there, in the middle of Meredith’s open living room that spilled into a deep terrace with a curling swimming pool. A kind of realisation opened in him. He was in love with Sugar. Madly, madly in love. And though it frightened him no longer, he tried distracting himself from it. Glanced at a famous portrait (Meredith said) of a medieval sprite named Aquila, Degilla or Godilla. He couldn’t tell, from the way she said it in her china-cup fragile way, what was correct.
“That you, darling?” she said from somewhere upstairs.
He heard her climbing delicately down the spiralling staircase with wrought iron balustrades. He pictured her autumn eyes and velvet skin, cream as snow. He played a snapshot of her beautifully engineered 10-carat smile. That smooth silk smile, fragile and lost. Before hint of her scent reached him, before her trophy smile, poised for effect, bestowed as reward, held perfectly in place on a five star face with movie calibre immortality, before all that could touch him, he was gone.
It happened five minutes from Automat Station on the way to Sugar. The blonde woman in a jumbo Roaditor yapped on her mobile as he crossed the road with the ribboned chocolate box selection. Last thing he remembered before lifting off the ground a bit dazed was a splash of rainbow.
Past noon now, fat blue-black flies soaked, almost drowned, in dead body fluids in the purple grass by the roadside. Heat lazed. It charred foreheads and split calloused hands. Those who napped in their houses, Liam thought, would feel sickened waking up two hours later in that heat. Those without a nap in their eyelids would slog, trying to find middle ground in and out of the heat. Perhaps fans or small leafed trees offered a little solace. Even butterflies dropped. Given the absence of cool winds to calm their feelers, they struggled anxiously, flickering one second or two, and then they simply collapsed. Drowsy bees fluttered around the heady scent of sun, wind, blood, and a little pollen caught between spring and summer.
A siren rose from the distance. It drew nearer.
Liam looked ahead, at the blocks bunched like little fists two streets away. A sign on one wall said: ‘We Have Moved’. Grey smoke curled skyward from Hoochi Mama’s chimney where waves of oven fire made crisp cinnamon bread. He blinked. The sun’s weight in his eyes was becoming unbearable. A bird cried in the sky, a glassy, wilderness sound.
“Loof!” said a cheerful dog struggling on his leash. The owner pulled him away, distracting him from the rusty smell of clotting blood on the road.
Something drew Liam’s gaze past a yellow and black billboard announcing a fledgling singer with knockout booty. His eye settled on Level 3, Block 517, where he and Sugar had lain side by side with touching toes on a fuchsia carpet.
White-as-white hair flew wild in warm winds at the window. Charcoal candy eyes beckoned him, gazing at him with such wonder. She was waving at someone behind him. As he turned and saw no one there, Nero’s words flashed in his head: “She was a tarot card reader.”
Tarot . . . tarot card reader . . .
Sudden elation gripped him. Sugar could see him. Not his body—meat, bone, blood—splattered under glass and metal. She could see him. Liam smiled. He waved. Sugar waved back. He started running towards her. Rock-a-tee. Rock-a-tee. He crossed the road to busy Satsuma Road. Wheels of a tram groaned like a grinder’s stone. They squealed. A door gleaming like a sword in the sun burst open. Liam didn’t look back. He steered clear of the road, away from ticking traffic lights, away from rolling cars, grunting cars, purring cars, buses, bicycles, trams. His feet silently moved past Hoochi Mama’s towards soft beckoning eyes filled with wonderment. Rock-a-tee. Rock-a-t
ee-tee-rock-a-tee.
STRANGE TALE OF DR RAVI MOHAN
S.D. Dharkar
PRATIBHA was worried—absolutely worried. She rang up her family doctor, Dr Gokhale.
“Doctor,” she said, “Ravi is behaving in a most unusual manner. He came from his laboratory this evening and looked at me and the children as if he did not recognize us. He started asking me whether I was the right one or somebody else. The children went towards him to welcome him but he pushed them aside. He said don’t come near him or they would get mixed up. He said it was necessary to brand us all with some recognizable sign. He then looked towards the bedroom and asked whether the other man was there. ‘Is the other fellow still there?’ He asked me. I am absolutely at my wit’s end, doctor. Please help me. Please tell me what I should do?”
The doctor was nonplussed. He was just a general practitioner. He thought Ravi had lost his memory temporarily. This happens, especially with these research workers. They are knee deep in their research and for a short time forget their environs. But it was necessary to consult an expert psychiatrist to inquire whether it was something approaching schizophrenia.
“Let us call doctor Balsara. He is a good psychiatrist. He will be able to examine him and treat him.”
When Dr Balasara came he asked Ravi in his usual patronizing way, “What is wrong with you, my dear man? You seem to be alright, tell me what is troubling you.”
“Doctor,” said Ravi in a despondent tone. “I am frightened, I don’t know whether I am sane or on the verge of a deep gorge from where I may not be able to come out.”
“Tell me what do you do for a living.”
“I am a research scientist doing research in physics.”
“Hmm . . .,” exclaimed the psychiatrist looking at Ravi’s eyes with his finger tips. “Tell me everything that happened with you, right from the beginning.”
“Well doctorsaheb, as I told you, I am a physicist. Today as I was engaged in my work, my boss told me to stop everything and ordered me to do accounting for the whole month—all clerical work, which I hate and it gave me a headache. So I got into my car and came to this garden, it is precisely made.”
“What is a precisely made garden?”
“The plants are arranged according to mathematical signs, squares, circles, equal to signs, more than, less than signs, arrows, triangles and what not. The flowers are beautiful. They are unique. I felt so good and calmed down.”
“And where is this mathematical garden?” asked the psychiatrist. “I have never seen it.”
“You know our physical laboratory. This garden is just near it, on the highway.”
“I always pass that way, but I have not seen this garden. Ok, let us forget this garden. Tell me what happened afterwards.”
“Well, as I was sitting on the bench, with my head throbbing, I felt giddy. After some time when I felt better, I went home. I pressed the bell. My wife, Pratibha opened the door and seemed absolutely taken aback. She said, ‘Just now I saw you lying in the bedroom and now all of a sudden you appear at the door—fully dressed, as if you are coming from the laboratory. How can you do this trick?’ I told her I was really coming from work and that I was feeling giddy and so she should give me something to eat. But my wife and children kept looking at me.
My son Prabhat and daughter Sai both at the same time ran to the bedroom. They shouted from there. ‘Daddy is here. He is sleeping on the bed.’ My wife ran immediately to the bedroom. When she came out, she was looking at me as if she was seeing something horrible. ‘Who are you?’ she shouted. The fellow who was sleeping in my bedroom came out on hearing this racket.
I saw him. He was exactly like me. His clothes were the same as I wear at home. Both of us looked at each other with awe bordering on disbelief. ‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’ I shouted at him. ‘This is my bedroom, you imposter?’ He shouted back. My wife and children were shouting at me, ‘Go away, go away.’
I did not understand a thing. I was sure that the imposter had hypnotized my family taking advantage of his likeness with me. I just stood there not knowing what to do. Then with a vicious snarl the man and the children dashed at me to throw me out of the house. But Pratibha shouted, ‘Don’t go near him. You will get mixed up. Ravi, you come here and sit in this chair away from him. You both children hold your daddy tight and don’t allow him to go near that fellow. I am just coming.’
She went to the kitchen and came back with a red hot iron rod. She mercilessly jabbed the thing on the man’s forehand. ‘What are you doing? Are you gone mad?’ he cried. ‘Don’t worry,’ my wife said, ‘I have branded you so I can recognize you.’ Then my wife and children threw me out of the house and locked the door.”
Dr Balsara heard this strange story recited by Ravi Mohan.
“Son, you research people have a vivid imagination that sometimes runs amok. You think what is happening in your mind is the real thing. You said your wife and children threw you out of your house, but I see you are sitting in your house with your wife and children, who are so much worried about you. Don’t tell me your wife first threw you out of the house and then took you in and called on me to treat you. She is so worried. She said you did not recognize her. How can you explain these two exactly opposite, scenes! You want to explain it off by saying that a man hypnotized your family. I shall give you some pills that will reduce your nervousness. Sleep it out man, sleep out your tensions.”
The whole of next day Ravi felt much better but the mystery of yesterday’s outlandish happenings did not leave his consciousness. Why did his own family not recognize him and then afterwards they welcomed him as if nothing had happened. He must solve this mystery. It must have deeper, almost unfathomable roots—if neglected it could lead to most dire consequences. Was it possible that the man had hypnotized his family! He looked so similar to him, as if he was his own brother. Was he his twin brother, who went missing and had come back!
He went to the laboratory like an automaton, without real will to do so. He did not feel like doing anything and just sat looking out of the window. His immediate subordinate, Batra, was worried, for he had great respect for Ravi.
“Batra,” said Ravi, “I am feeling rather out of sorts, I think I will go out and sit in the garden for a while. You can continue with yesterday’s experiment.”
“Ok,” said Batra, “but where are you going?”
“I am going to the garden nearby.”
“But there is no garden nearby. Are you taking the car? It is rather hot outside.”
“Don’t worry. I shall be ok.”
But Batra was worried. He decided to see what was wrong with his boss. He said he was going to the garden. There was a municipal garden but it was far off. It was rather unusual for the boss to take the car and go to a far off garden to sit in this merciless climate. He followed Ravi discreetly.
Ravi walked towards his garden and sat on his usual bench under the cool shadow of a tree. Wasn’t it nice and cool here! You feel all the worries and troubles of the world vanish once you come here—to this heavenly place.
Batra saw his boss sitting in the blazing sun. He ran towards him.
“Boss, boss . . . what are you doing here, sitting in the hot sun! Something is wrong. Let me take you home to take some rest. The workload in the lab is telling on your health.”
“What are you saying, Batra! You don’t like this beautiful garden! It is so peaceful and pleasant out here.”
“But sir, you are squatting on the ground in the rubble and gravel. Where is the garden? I don’t see it anywhere. You come with me. We will go home.”
Was the letter written by him made of negative atoms! In that case that man also was made of negative atoms.
Batra caught hold of his hand and dragged the unwilling Ravi to his car. He brought him home.
“Bhabhiji, Ravisab is not feeling well. Take care of him. Let him take rest for a day or two.”
Ravi lay on his bed, thinking hard about the happenings of the day
. Was he losing his grip on himself? The doctor said his thoughts and fears were taking over as reality. According to the doctor what he thought did not happen at all physically but happened in his mind. His mind had projected his mental processes as reality—as the actual happening. He thought about how his wife and children had thrown him out of the home and a man who was an exact copy of himself had called him an imposter. Did it happen or not! Then he thought about the beautiful garden. Dr Balsara and Batra could not see the garden although it was there. Or was it that only he was seeing the garden? Was he seeing things—just hallucinating! Ravi got frightened. But how could it be! He had sat on the bench in the beautiful garden and savored its cool and invigorating surroundings. It looked so real. There must be some mistake. There must be some other explanation that was eluding him. He must find out for himself. As he got up and dressed to go his wife came running.
“Where are you going? The doctor had forbidden you from going anywhere.”
“I am not going to the lab to work.
I am just going for a ride; that should perk me up a little.”
“I am coming with you,” she said.
“No you are not.”
“Yes, I am,” she said and sat alongside him.
“I don’t know what to make of you. First you throw me out of the house and next you are so worried about me.”
“What are you saying, how can I throw you out of our own house!”
Ravi did not answer. He drove on towards his beautiful garden. Once there, he got down and stood looking at the bench—his bench where he had sat many times. He took a stone and threw it at the same spot. The stone disappeared!
“Did you see the stone disappearing?” he asked his wife.
“It did not disappear. It is lying there amongst the rubble.”
“Ok, I shall now throw a much larger stone. Now, did you see it going?”
“No, it did not; it is lying amongst the rubble as before.”
“Alright, at least you can see this beautiful garden. So nice and cooling.”