by Paul Theroux
When I woke, Mrs. Unger was beside me.
She seemed to inhabit a vapor, a fragrant cloud filled with the aroma of flowers and also of Indian spices, mingled oils, and perfumes. She was warmth and softness and a kind of light too. This sounds hyperbolic. I supposed I was overreacting to her because I was so relieved to see her. She brushed my shoulder, the caress of warm skin or silk against my side. I lifted my head a little and saw she was wearing a purple sari. She was moving her hands, palms downward, paddling the air over my body as though warming them like fingers over a fire, and in another motion lifting them in a gesture of levitation, and then making a flourish with them as though she was earnestly searching, my body the object of her dowsing motions.
"Just breathe normally," she said, and that was all she said for a while.
Still I lay naked, slick with oil, imagining that I could feel her fluttering hands. I was glad she was there, not just relieved that she was not an Indian masseur but delighted to see her again. Since the previous day I'd been thinking about her—involuntarily, she shimmered in my memory—and I'd even had a vivid dream of her in which she smiled at me, then turned around and was someone else, a demon version of her bewitching side. The everyday horrors on an Indian street or in an average temple make this sort of nightmare a common occurrence. Without speaking, but (in the manner of dreams) knowing what I wanted, I tried to get her to turn again so I could behold that sensual side of her.
"Trying to see where you need work," she was saying with banal practicality over my feverish memories. Her hands were still active in the air, hovering as if receiving signals with her fingers and palms.
"Where did you come from?"
She didn't answer. With a frown in her voice, she said, "Yes, you do need work. Upper trapezius muscles. Very tight."
Hearing that pleased me. I wanted her to stay. I wanted her attention.
"Now I'm going to ask you to turn over."
I skidded slightly as I rolled onto my back. Then I felt the warmth and weight of a towel over my pelvic area; she tucked the ends under my buttocks, so I was decent. A moment later she placed a damp cloth over my eyes. In the darkness I became more aware of the music in the room—a sitar, a warbling flute, and in bursts the pok-pok of tabla drums.
Now I felt her confident fingers on me. She was holding my toes, one by one, explaining softly, "This is your shoulder"—the small toes—"very tense," and working her way from toe to toe, "your neck, your ears," and gripping my big toe, "your head." She dug her nails into the sole of each foot and lifted it, applying pressure. After a minute or so, the same refrain, "You need work."
The very pressure of her fingers relaxed me. She took my right arm and kneaded it from the shoulder downward, my biceps, my forearm, my wrist, my palm, each finger, being thorough, squeezing hard at times, just this side of pain; and then the other arm. She worked my head, my ears, my neck, my face, sometimes caressing me, more often probing, finding a muscle, twisting hard to awaken it and leaving it vibrant with heat.
She said little more, though I could sense her breathing, both as a sighing softness in the air and a pressure against me, the swelling of her midsection of bare skin between the sari and the bodice.
All she said was "Don't help me—relax," as she went lower, lifting my legs, bending each one, stretching and flexing them, my feet, my ankles. She pinched all the muscles from my ankle upward, tracing them and working her knuckles against them, to my thigh; then gripping my inner thigh and making it a bundle of muscle meat, twisting it, and as she did brushing my penis with the backs of her hands, though (this thought burning like a hot circuit in my mind) giving the thing no direct attention.
That was the thickening query, stirring under the towel, the dumb "What now?" that made it so awkward to be a man, the dog-like obviousness of it. But if she noticed, she didn't say so, intent upon warming my thighs, and muscle by muscle taking possession of every part of my body.
An hour or more of this, though I had lost track of time—it could have been two hours. I was keenly aware that she knew what she was doing. Her touch was sure; she knew each muscle and every connector and bit of gristle in me. And she knew—how could she not?—what effect she was having on me. But apart from her incidental brushings and touches, she did not take hold of my penis, which was not erect but swelling.
All her massaging with her querying fingers had been working toward my center, seeming to push energy into my groin. I wanted to say Touch me there, but there was something delicious in the delay. Of course I wanted more. I supposed that much was visible, but I was also eager to see what would come next, for as she massaged me, and as I became more relaxed and grateful, I had the impression of her as a person of immense power and authority.
Healing hands, her son had said. Magic fingers, Rajat had said. She hadn't denied it. She had lifted her hands and admired them. I had smiled then, but I wasn't smiling now. She was inflicting pain on me, at the periphery of my groin, pushing hard, and as she did, her hair must have come undone, because I could sense the cool sweep of her loose tresses on my aching muscles.
After a while, in a stupor of ecstasy, I did not feel her hands on me. I seemed to be floating. Her arms were extended above my body, and she was paddling with her hands again, palms-down.
"Better," she said, leaning over me. "But I can still feel tightness here and here."
"Good."
"Not good," she said.
"So I'll have to come back."
"If you want to."
"I want to."
"Are you sure?"
This testing was a little like the massage—a questioning pressure, a tentative flirting, a deeper return, that teased me and gave me pleasure.
"Please."
When had I ever pleaded before? But I meant it. Nothing else seemed to matter. Her silence was also a form of pressure.
"This place is magic," I said, to encourage her to speak to me.
Her muted laugh, more like the contraction of a muscle, made me wary, almost fearful of what she'd say next.
"You don't even know where you are," she said with the energy of that same suppressed laughter. "And you don't know me."
"I want to know. I want to come back." I must have sounded like an overeager child. I lay naked and oily on the table.
"I know exactly what you want," she said. I did not see her move, though she must have because the flame of the oil lamp had begun to shimmy.
She put a robe over my shoulders, and I slipped off the table, stood unsteadily, and tied the cords. She, who had loomed over me and had seemed so powerful, now stepped aside, looking almost fragile.
I wanted to convince her of my sincerity and my worth, but I was out of ideas. I knew I was in subterranean Calcutta, but above ground the chaos in the city echoed the chaos in my mind. Perhaps that was why I wanted to come back to this vault. I yearned to see her again. This need gave me a vague sense of obligation, as though I owed her for her good will, the close attention of her hands. She had touched me. I wanted somehow to repay her so that I could return.
"What's the name of the hotel?"
"The hotel?"
"Where Rajat had the problem."
"Where Rajat claims he had a problem," she said, correcting me and putting her hand on my arm, a mother's caress of consolation. She went on, "Never mind that. It's Rajat's affair. I'm sure you have plenty of more important things to do."
"I have some spare time." I wanted to say more, that I had nothing but time, that I was grateful for her attention precisely because I had failed to make anything of my visit, that I had nothing to write about, nothing in my head, and only the slightest desire to make notes. Looking at the hotel would help me kill one of my vacant hours.
She saw the earnest, perhaps pathetic willingness on my face and looked almost pityingly at me.
"You'd be doing Rajat an enormous favor," she said.
"I want to do you a favor too."
"We're a happy little constellation,"
she said. "You could be part of it."
"I'd like that."
"It's, um, a shabby little hotel called the Ananda, behind New Market—the Hogg Market."
"The corpse just turned up in the room?"
"I have no idea. Rajat was hysterical. He'd been traumatized. All I know is that is what he told me, that he saw the dead person and he ran."
"When did this happen?"
"It was three weeks ago. Charlie and I were out of Calcutta then. That's why Rajat was in the hotel. He was waiting for us to come back."
"So you don't know more than that?"
Her obstinate smile of disapproval had never looked brighter.
"Don't you see?" She was beaming at my stupidity, pushing the door open to take me back to the lobby of the mansion and the waiting car. "That's why we were counting on you."
All this kindness and consideration—the car, the driver, the masseurs, Mrs. Unger's surprise appearance, the massage, the teasing conversation about the hotel, then the car again, the driver again—seemed so generous and helpful, anticipating my desires.
But when it was over and I was back on my verandah with (at Mrs. Unger's suggestion) a glass of mango juice, I realized that I'd been manipulated. Every move had been planned, and I had allowed myself to be exposed—manipulated in every sense, exposed in every sense.
When you're alone in a distant city, floating as foreigners do, and someone is kind, the kindness is magnified and so is your gratitude. If you're a man and that kind person is a woman, you might feel you've been touched by an angel.
A first-time traveler might have been smitten. I was not. I had been traveling too long not to be suspicious of such attention. I had not forgotten that this had all come about because Mrs. Unger had asked me a favor. She had been specific at first, but had gotten me to the Lodge and into her hands by a deft series of moves, the way someone might try to sell you something expensive—in the very manner an Indian might sell you a carpet. "Have a cup of tea, sir. No need to buy, just look..."
I was almost persuaded. But some people are so smooth, their very persuasiveness is suspect, again like the Indian in the carpet emporium who marshals so many arguments in favor of the value of the thing he's trying to sell you, you are convinced it's a fake.
It was hard for me in the midst of this to see Mrs. Unger as an American. The finely draped sari and the meticulous henna tattoos on her feet impressed me, but I'd seen other Americans with that studied appearance. Her haughtiness and her decisive manner made me listen, but something else bothered me—her presumption. She wanted me to do her a favor; she, like her Indian counterpart, wouldn't take no for an answer. And there was the sequence of events, from the drink at the Oberoi to today, her hands on me. She had planned everything, as an angel might, as someone diabolical too, and she'd thought I hadn't noticed her calculation.
The very skill of the manipulation made me doubtful, the way the sweetest words can make you shrink in fear. I won't hurt you can sound terrifying. I did not want to fall too fast. Mrs. Unger seemed to know a lot about me. Your friends at the consulate. She knew my work and where I lived, and she probably knew that I was living hand-to-mouth. But what she didn't know, because wealthy people never seemed to know this, was that I had all the time in the world. I didn't want to be possessed by her.
I did not hear from her after that. Not a word. After the imploring letter, the pleasant meeting, the magic fingers—nothing. She had occupied two full days of my time in Calcutta and now I spent a day waiting, feeling uncomfortable, in suspense and sensing rejection.
She had teased me, made me feel helpless, invited me to the inner room of her strange mansion, which I thought of as Mrs. Unger's vault; and now she was inaccessible. I know what you want was a tease, but truthful. It put me all the more in her power, because she knew, because she denied me.
That night I made some notes, something to the effect that the first infatuation of a love affair is a delusion of possession. Nothing else matters. And about how I enjoyed the feeling for its making me youthful. But I also knew that it made me obvious and foolish, even ridiculous, because I was middle-aged and out of ideas.
With time on my hands, I decided to investigate her request by paying a visit to the Ananda Hotel.
The Ananda was one of many narrow, decaying four-story hotels on a side street off New Market. A persistent beggar, a woman with a baby, pleaded with me, dogging me for a whole block, moving as quickly in bare feet as I did in sturdy shoes. I was reminded of Howard's story of the nanny who used her boss's child for begging. I got rid of her with five rupees, and seeing my money a tout shouldered me aside, chanting, "Shawls, pashminas, scarves—for you, sir, shahtoosh," while another tout with a skinny sweaty face howled, "What you want, sir? Anything!"
What I wanted was to get a clear view of the Ananda as I dodged oncoming traffic and the march of pedestrians. Approaching the hotel, I was spotted by a man sitting in front of the Taj Palace, another flophouse, who said, "Try here, sir. Best price."
But I kept going, up the stairs and into the incense stink and gloom of the Ananda, its lobby no more than an entryway with a window like that in a ticket office. A calendar, a blotter, a bell. I rang the bell.
A thin small woman appeared, and instead of a sari she wore a faded pink dress with a white collar, her hair plaited into one thick braid which lay on her back.
"Good afternoon, sir."
"Do you have any vacant rooms?"
"Yes, sir. Single. Double. Garden view. Family suite. Which, sir?"
"I'm not sure. Can I see some?"
Without replying she plucked some keys from hooks on a board just inside the ticket window. Following her up the stairs—no elevator—I asked her her name.
"Mina, sir."
"Christian?"
"Indeed, sir."
"What's your family name?"
"Jagtap, sir."
"Thanks for helping me, Mina."
"Pleasure, sir."
The first room was small and stifling. She showed me the bathroom, the plastic shower stall, the closet, the cot.
"Double is next door."
The double was only a little bigger, with two cots separated by a low table, on which a vase held two extravagant plastic blooms. I found these rooms depressing and almost frightening in their rankness, with the tang of mice and roaches, airless and entrapping.
"This hotel was mentioned by someone I know."
"Thank you, sir."
"He had a little problem when he was here." I had looked at the calendar. Three weeks ago, Mrs. Unger had said. That was the weekend of the seventh. I said, "Around the seventh or so. Did anything unusual happen then?"
"No, sir."
"It might help if I knew what room he was in."
"Nothing unusual, sir. Not on premises."
"Let's go downstairs, Mina."
At the ticket window she replaced the keys on the hooks. "Which room do you wish to book, sir?"
"I'm not sure. It's not for tonight. Some other time." She shrugged and turned away. I said, "Mina, I need to see your guest register."
The big old-fashioned clothbound ledger lay out of reach on a shelf, just inside the window.
"Cannot, sir. Register contains confidential information."
What annoyed me was the efficient way she dismissed my request, with a perfectly formulated phrase in good English. It was an Indian rebuff, articulate and final.
But I said, "Do you have a brother, Mina?"
"Three, sir."
"What if one of them was missing? What if your mother was desperate to know his whereabouts? Wouldn't you want someone to help you?"
"Sir"—and she looked anguished—"register cannot be shown to general public for examination without manager's permission."
"Mina, I don't want to examine it. I only want to look at one page." I could see her weaken, a slackening in her shoulders, a tilt of her head. "Please. Just the page showing the weekend of the seventh."
With
out speaking, she slid the ledger onto the counter under the grille. She opened it, wet her thumb, and whittled away at the corners of the pages, and when she found the right page she glanced behind her in the direction of the manager's office and propped the book open before me.
Five days were shown. This was not a busy hotel. I was looking for Rajat's name. I wanted to find his room, the rate, any information under Remarks, his home address, anything. All the names I saw were Indian. His name was not there. I turned the page.
"You said weekend seventh."
"I may have been mistaken."
But there was no Rajat on that page either. I turned back to the week before the seventh.
"Please, sir."
I was running my finger under each name, seeing "Rajat" nowhere, when Mina snatched the register away. At that moment, the front door opened and a man in a white kurta glared at me with blazing eyes, his calculations as obvious as the tremor on his face and his fierce discolored teeth. His sudden anger convulsed him and gave him a neuralgic gait.
"He demanded to see, sir." Mina was breathless with panic.
In one limping movement the man stepped behind the counter and with a furious uppercut slapped the register shut. He shoved it onto a high shelf and pushed Mina aside—bumped her with his arm—his eyes wide, his lower lip jutting beneath his nose.
"I was checking the rates," I said.
"Rates are not there. Rates are here," he said, tapping the glass of the counter with a yellow fingernail. Under the glass was a small card with columns, headed Room Rates — Daily — Weekly — Monthly. "Register is strictly confidential." He spoke as though in stereo, in two directions, to Mina and me.
I thanked him, but as I was leaving I heard him shout—a bawling in Bengali, the sort of rage I'd heard before in India, uninhibited indignation, pure fury, always a man screaming at a woman.