by Susan Finlay
‘I said do you remember David, David Goldstein? He used to be the Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group convener.’
‘Yes I remember him.’
‘Might be worth getting in touch. He did some interesting work on belief when he was here, although he now seems to have disappeared completely . . . ’
‘He’s managing the Games Workshop.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s nothing.’
Meghana watched as Professor Woźniak wrote something down and handed it to her, and then she put it in her bag, stood up and said goodbye. She felt sad to already be leaving his smoke and warmth behind her, as well as the smoke and warmth of his office, which joined the anthropological bits and the historical bits and the theological bits of what constituted the geography department’s giant filing system together. The university always seemed like such a different, cloistered world – both very big and very small but always very far away from what was real and solid – and very unlike her life outside of it, where everything became cold and clear again, and nearer to Dr David Goldstein, who used to be the Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group convener but now seemed to have disappeared completely . . .
Meghana left the building and walked into a large, forty-something man who, despite the weather, was clad only in a tee-shirt, the slogan on which boldly stated ‘I’M ON THE LIST’. She looked at him and shivered, and the man looked back at her, and said, ‘This isn’t cold.’ And then laughed to reveal a mouth filled with gold that, unlike her hair, or indeed any other part of her, inside or out, twinkled merrily.
Sivāchāra
STANISŁAW KWIATKOWSKI WALKED UP PAST the still, silver lake, the pale-pink ice cream kiosk, the glossy-green leaves of the rhododendron bushes, and towards Józek’s office, where the squeaky floorboard, which plagued his tender ears, and which the university’s maintenance department considered too small and insignificant a task to warrant their attention, was in need of Stanisław’s friendly expertise. As he rounded the corner he saw a beautiful young woman, shivering in exactly the same, melancholy way that his daughter would have done had she been there now, and as a result of this he laughed and said, ‘This isn’t cold.’
The woman held his gaze for a moment, her long black hair streaked across the silver, pink and green, before walking silently away. He watched as she receded, then shook his head and checked his watch. He was early, so he wandered off towards Starbucks. He liked the big leatherette armchairs and the wood-effect panelling, both of which reminded him of someone else’s home; and he also liked the girl who worked behind the counter, who, unlike the woman he’d passed just now, or even his wife, or even his daughter, always smiled when she saw him.
‘Hello Stan. Nice tee-shirt,’ said the girl as soon as he entered.
‘Thank you. I am what you call the joker, yes?’
‘Well it’s certainly brightened up my day.’
‘Again, thank you. And now I would like the white coffee.’
‘Do you mean Americano?’
‘Americano is coffee, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is white, yes?’
‘If you add a dash of milk yes.’
‘No other ingredients?’
‘No.’
‘Then yes I mean Americano. And by the way you have nice smile.’
The girl smiled nicely and typed something into the till.
‘And would that be a grande Americano?’
‘No, small.’
‘Small is tall.’
‘No small is small.’
‘No small is tall,’ she said again, still smiling, and then began to fiddle with the coffee machine’s nozzle, until it squirted coffee and steam into an officially small or tall but actually massive paper cup. ‘Okay so that’s one tall Americano! Here you go! Enjoy!’
Stanisław took his coffee from her, added a dash of milk and sat down. Opposite him two boys were drinking out of officially grande but actually colossal paper cups, each one of which was filled with syrup and cream, so that as they raised their drinks towards their mouths their lips became covered in foam, turning them both into babies.
‘Well there’s a march next week, and I really think that we should go,’ said one of them.
‘But what’s the point?’ said the other. ‘The march last year was the biggest march, the biggest protest, in human history—’
‘According to who?’
‘According to everyone. And the news. And it didn’t do anything. We can’t do anything. We’re powerless.’
The first boy became aware of the foam, and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Then he pulled out a bag of badges, like the ones that Dave, and now also Katarzyna wore, and placed them on the centre of the table.
‘But even if we can’t stop it we can still show that we don’t agree with it. And that’s doing something, surely?’
‘Yes, if doing something means making yourself feel better. But if doing something means helping others, then no.’
The second boy took another sip of cream and syrup, while his friend looked at the badges that had now spilled out between them.
‘My father was killed in 1970,’ said Stanisław suddenly.
Both of the boys turned round. There was a long pause and then eventually the first one said, ‘Killed?’
‘Yes. During riot. At that time condition in shipyard very bad. The workers riot. My father killed. But it change nothing. Later we form Solidarność. It mean solidarity – a union of workers but separate to state – and then in ’81 Solidarność strike. I strike. And this time government bring in army.’
The first boy nodded dumbly, while the second boy dipped his index finger into what remained of his drink and sucked on it like a dummy.
‘After eight years more, communism end. For some people there is now freedom, yes? It is easier to leave Poland, to work in other country, yes? But this is because of what happen in 1970 and 1981, even if seem like nothing happen at some times.’
The second boy took his finger out of his mouth and said, ‘Well that’s certainly given us something to think about. Thanks for sharing.’
Stanisław looked back at the girl behind the counter and sighed, and then took a sip of coffee that was suddenly bitter. He knew that these boys, who had now turned away from him, didn’t understand him, and that they couldn’t understand him. He knew that to them and people like them he would never be anything more than an eccentric, amusing foreigner, or worse still an annoying one – and yet the old words, Wałęsa’s words, which now came back to him, were not ones he could forget: ‘I do not want to but I have to.’
Reluctantly, the second boy turned back.
‘Please,’ said Stanisław, ‘I would like the badge.’
The boy picked one up and handed it to Stanisław, who pinned it onto his tee-shirt so that it made a dot above the ‘i’ in ‘list’, and as he did so the urge to share what he knew, to try, once more, and make them understand continued to rise up, unexpectedly, inside him, so that, before the boy had time to turn away again, Stanisław had taken hold of his shoulder. He held on, very tightly and then, pushing his face close said, ‘The Pope support Wałęsa, support Solidarność,’ and on this, last word he clenched his hand into a fist and held it in the air, ‘and the Pope also want to stop this war. This is good, yes? This is what hope mean, yes?’
Bhrityāchāra
DR DAVID GOLDSTEIN EDGED INTO the only available parking space and looked up at the large red-brick building that might once have been a house, or a pub, but now, thanks to the various stone sculptures that had been attached to the top half of it, functioned as a Hindu temple. Then he turned, perhaps a little too eagerly, to Meg, who was sitting, shivering, in the passenger seat beside him, and said, ‘This err, this must be it.’
‘Must be.’
‘Err . . . ’
‘Well come on then.’
He couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed, not only by Meg’s curr
ent lack of enthusiasm, but also the numerous ways in which she had consistently skirted his attempts to visit Leicester for Diwali – which meant that she still didn’t want him to meet her family, which meant that she still didn’t want him to be part of her family, which meant that anything more than a drink after work was still resolutely out of bounds. He watched as she opened the door of his parents’ car, and stepped out onto the street, and shivered again, from what he assumed must be the darkness more than the cold.
‘But are you sure we’ve got the right day?’ he said, clambering out after her.
‘No. No I’m not. I’ve never been to this temple, and I don’t keep track of such things.’
‘But what are the rules?’
‘Be a good Hindu.’
‘But there must be others.’
‘Yes, if you like.’
Meg buttoned up her coat, and then they walked, in silence, up towards the entrance, where an old lady in a sari and an anorak was handing out sweets.
‘I should take some for Judy,’ said Meg.
‘Who’s Judy?’
‘This really annoying woman at work.’
‘Oh?’
But nothing more was forthcoming. David took one of the sweets and then wondered what he should do with it. He thought that it seemed rude to refuse the old lady, but also wrong to start eating, and yet, as soon as he put the soft white ball inside his pocket, where it immediately squashed against his thigh, he regretted his earlier worries. He noticed that Meg, who hadn’t taken a sweet, was removing her shoes, and so quickly followed suit, before, as always, trailing after her . . .
‘But there’s no order,’ said David, as the temple, meaning the statues, the carvings, the general excesses, rose up, abruptly, all around him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well that’s not much of an answer.’
He reddened and looked at the floor, thinking as he did so that although he wanted to articulate how unsettled he was feeling, the only thing he could have put into words was that the sensation of walking on the polished marble in just his socks struck him as unusual. He could see shrines, or what he assumed were shrines, dotted at what looked like random intervals – not just on the sides of the walls but throughout the whole of the space. And he could see that each one of them contained several black stone statues, wearing real, but miniature clothes and decorated with fresh flowers. And he could see that incense and oil lamps were burning in the alcoves in front of them, and that in between them were plates laid out with the soft white sweets, fresh fruit and yet more flowers . . .
David stepped closer to the nearest shrine, and as he did so he realised that his socks were soggy. He looked down and saw that a large tap was attached to the base, and that, although nothing was coming out of it now, it clearly had done recently. Then a bare-chested man, adorned with ash, vilva leaves and sandal paste drifted past, and the creamy, precious scent engulfed him . . .
‘And what are they?’
He pointed to the bits of fruit, eager for names, terms, through which to understand it all, and yet deep down he also knew that whatever words he found would still not come close to what he wished to think of as the experience’s centre.
‘Pieces of fruit?’ said Meg, twisting her hair around her long, elegant fingers. ‘Incense? Lamps? Some of the same sweets that you put in your pocket earlier?’
The bare-chested man drifted by again, and this time offered up a fragrant smile, while David shook his dripping foot, and then looked at Meg imploringly. He wanted, more than anything else, to say, ‘I love you and I want to be your lover,’ but instead he blurted out, ‘Sometimes I don’t want to be your friend.’
‘I was only being stupid. You don’t need to take offence,’ said Meg, and then, pointing to the fruit and to the sweets, ‘Deepa and naivaedyaas, for the statues that represent the different gods that represent the different aspects of the one god Brahman.’
‘Well that’s a very thorough answer.’
‘So does that mean that you still want to be my friend?’
‘Yes, yes . . . I-I just, err—’ But still he couldn’t say it.
Instead he looked back towards the shrine nearest to him, now noticing how the flowers that decorated some of the smaller statues had been upturned and placed upon their heads. The bare-chested man drifted by again, and then some children came in and stood in front of another shrine – but still it made no sense.
‘And what are they?’ he said, pointing at the upturned flowers.
‘Sun hats?’ Meg laughed, and then quickly added, ‘I mean I don’t know, just another way of decorating the statues I suppose, but I don’t think they have a special name or anything.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you disappointed?’
‘No,’ he said, which was partly true because of all the beauty that surrounded him, but partly false because he had failed to act when the moment inside him had arisen.
David looked around the temple, and just like his visits to the cathedral or the synagogue, what he saw made no sense. He could not conceive of any rules or order, and yet the place smelled of sandalwood and fruit and leaves, and some of the statues, the ones that represented the different gods that represented the different aspects of the one god Brahman, wore flowers like tiny sun hats on their black stone heads. And some of the women, specifically Meg, had long, silky hair and long, silky eyelashes. It was beautiful, yes, it was beautiful, so beautiful that for a moment he became lost in it – but still it made no sense . . .
‘Even Kathy has started asking me about my heritage,’ said Meg, stressing the last word to make it sound ridiculous. ‘She wants to make a film about the lingam.’
‘That’s interesting. I mean I don’t understand all . . . ’ His gaze drifted back towards the bare-chested man, ‘all, err, all this. But it’s beautiful.’
Meg laughed again, and then suddenly stopped and pulled her coat around her even tighter than before, even though the temple, like the darkness, wasn’t cold.
‘Everything’s just a look to you though isn’t it Dave? And the browner and weirder the better?’
And then they were back to the mood of their arrival. He felt disappointed, both with Meg’s reluctance to be near him, and his failure to bridge the gap that existed between them. He thought not only of the sweet sticking to the inside of his jeans and his soggy socks but also that there had to be some way out of it, to love, or at least impress her.
‘Actually, I’ve been doing some more research into magik – you know, with a “k”, and I was hoping to organise something pretty special, a kind of religious experiment almost. It would take three of us to do it, three magicians, and together we’d kind of harness the Internet, use it as a kind of transmitter to transmit, I don’t know, err, love maybe, which could be in a platonic or even an, err, romantic sense. And I was wondering if you could have a word with Kathy about using the Media Hub and—’
‘No.’
Meg scraped her hair back into an elastic band and did up the last button on her coat.
‘Well okay then, I suppose I could email her—’
‘No Dave, no. I mean . . . I mean, it’s like I sometimes think that you’d rather be Kathy’s friend than my friend. But Kathy’s Eoin’s friend.’
‘But isn’t she engaged to Eoin?’
Meg was still beautiful when she was angry, thought David, but he preferred her when she wasn’t. Plus, she made no sense. And yet now she too smelled of sandalwood and fruit and leaves – things he didn’t yet know the reasons for, or even where or how to learn them. He was just an educated Englishman, he told himself sadly, all too aware of his type of existence, its multiple meanings and multiple truths all of which had been discussed, at length, during the Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group, but none of which ever culminated in anything more than a footnote or two on appropriate contexts . . .
He took a deep breath, and as he did so he reminded himsel
f that you could be the Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group convener or the Games Workshop Manager one day, but an almighty wizard the next. Or a PhD nerd one day and an almighty wizard the next. Or even the lover of the one you loved, and who just might, with a little persuasion, be persuaded to love you too, and as if by some kind of magik . . .
And then in one small-but-big-enough-to-be-reckless moment David reached out for Meg, held onto her, and kissed her.
Ganāchāra
MARGARET O’SHEA STOPPED, STOOPED AND rubbed her knees, which as always ached. Then, when she stood up again, the sudden rush of blood to the head made her dizzy. She held out one arm, palm flat against the wall, and waited until the feeling had passed, and then, when she was just about right again, she put the teapot on the tray, rearranged the plate of bourbon creams and shuffled back into the front room, where Blessings and Albertina were waiting.
‘Let me help you with that,’ said Blessings.
She took the tray from her, while Albertina plumped up one of the already plump cushions.
‘Thank you.’ Margaret made a breathy whistling sound. ‘But you’re the visitor Albertina, so it really should be me who is helping you.’
Albertina smiled at Margaret and then at Blessings, who, like her, had recently joined the St Vincent de Paul Society, which meant that they were now responsible for visiting the sick and elderly members of the parish. As Margaret did not see herself as either of these things, however, she had decided that the only option was to view their visit as amusing, or even, if you took the ‘de’ into account, just a little bit affected.
‘And how are your knees Margaret?’ said Blessings.
‘Oh they’re fine, fine thank you, yes.’
Margaret looked down at her legs and realised that, without thinking, she had just given them another rub. Then she removed her hearing aid and put it in her pocket, picked up the plate of bourbon creams, and held it out in front of her.
‘Now ladies please, you must help yourself to a bourbon.’ And both Blessings and Albertina took one, while Margaret smiled knowingly.