When She Was Queen

by M G Vassanji

  They had entered the second hour of the long Indian film, had taken their dessert and tea was to follow shortly, when Rusty suddenly sat up and stiffened, adjusted his glasses, and before anyone could respond was up and running to the window, shouting, “It’s them! They’re here!”

  “Who, what?” Diamond said, startled, no sooner having asked which than he heard the low humming of truck engines outside. Vina was already up, behind Rusty, and Shireen emerged from the privacy of her room.

  Two trucks, engines on, headlights off, parked across the road from the house; six hooded Klan figures, four of them strutting about, evidently up to something, the other two standing erect, arms folded, facing the house. A white cross about five feet long appears, held up vertically by two of the four figures, apparently burning but actually powered electrically by one of the truck batteries. Tepid, smoke-free Klansmen (and perhaps women), to the townspeople a joke in bad taste.

  There comes a look of terror on Vina’s face at the sight of the raised fluorescent cross; her face drained white, she turns her large eyes silently upon Diamond. Her husband, on the other hand, in constant fidgety motion, is red with rage. The old woman is next to Diamond, moaning, perhaps uttering invocations, and he feels compelled to put an arm around her frail shoulders. Shireen watches all with a calm, blank face, all her expression caught in her tense young body, her fists clenched at her sides. Diamond’s eyes meet the girl’s and he wants to apologize, say to her, Sorry kid, I’m so sorry, we should be able to do something.

  Rusty meanwhile has dashed off inside and emerged waving a handgun in front of him, screaming, “I’ll show them, those motherfuckers—”

  His wife moves to restrain him, “No, Rusty, please, this isn’t the solution, Rusty—”

  Rusty, “Get out of my way,” is back at the window yelling mindless imprecations. “Come out you yellow bastards, redneck devils! Halloween ghosts, mahdder chod, show your balls you cowards in bedsheets!”

  In reply, mindless answers, mock laughter: “Tee-hee, tee-hee,” and what Diamond discerns as “Go home, niggers,” and “Elvis ain’t for Hin-doo cows—tee-hee.”

  There comes the faint sound of music from a truck radio; perhaps Elvis.

  The Indian movie, still running in the rec area behind them, belongs to another world.

  Rusty is finally subdued, the trucks speed away. The terror has lasted ten minutes.

  Rusty, gasping for breath, is guided to a sofa, and he hands his gun to Vina, who with a doubtful glance at it passes it quickly to Diamond. It is the first time Diamond has held a gun, and somewhat alarmed at himself he can’t suppress a twinge of excitement, a trite momentousness, at the feel of its compact metallic black density in his hands; it is an object, he surmises with grudging admiration—turning it around and over, running his fingers over the grip with the maker’s insignia, the smooth barrel, all the notches, the grooves, the sleek multiple surfaces in such a small space—designed and finished with devotion. It looks perfect.

  “It’s a cool weapon—Beretta 92, double-action 9-mm auto, packs ten shells in all of two pounds,” says Shireen.

  In the frenzy of the past few minutes she had disappeared from sight. Here she is now in her denim and khaki, tall and limber, a rifle held casually in one hand.

  “Isn’t that too heavy for you?” he asks for want of anything better to say.

  “Nope. It’s mine, a ladies’ model—Winchester.”

  She lets him hold it.

  IV.

  Next morning brings a calm bright cheeriness with it, the household taken over in happy preoccupation with its weekend routines—Vina and her mother cooking brunch, Shireen watching cartoons, Rusty pottering away in the backyard; and the previous night’s terror a bad dream.

  “Here’s the Chicago Tribune,” says Vina, as Diamond emerges from his basement domain. She indicates the paper on the dining table and brings over a cup of tea along with a plate of sweets from the kitchen. “Brunch will be a while yet.” He smiles his thanks and she sits down a moment with him. She is still in her housecoat, a fact that sends an unwelcome pang of nostalgia through him. The plain, unmade face has a nice frankness to it, and the multiple loose strands from her casually tied hair make her viscerally attractive. Feeling his predatory look upon her, she skips away with a knowing smile.

  A sizzling overture precedes the aroma of fried spices that soon begins to fill the air. In the background the kitchen TV contends boisterously with a program of ear-catching Indian oldies from the films of the sixties. “The program comes to us on cable from Vancouver,” Vina explains. “Come inside the kitchen if you would like to watch the show.”

  He would hate to watch old black-and-white dance numbers from a bygone era, and he declines the invitation politely, saying he’d rather not crowd the kitchen more than it already is, with both Ma and Vina busy inside. The hostess nods she understands. Taking the paper with him, hunting for a suitable place to read by himself, Diamond pauses briefly at the front window. Cool golden sunlight bathes the earth on this beautiful, peaceful fall Sunday as serene as the first day of creation. Did this same world on some nights grow horns, wings, and scales, breathe fire and howl to terrify the inhabitants of this house?

  Vina has to announce brunch in several parts of the house before everyone gathers at the table. There is on offer puri and spiced potato garnished with fresh coriander, which Ma grew indoors, and parathas stuffed with radishes and other vegetables, an omelette, and idlies and daal. Altogether a meal for a platoon, Diamond observes, and Ma says something that Vina relays as, “We have to fatten you up.” Rusty reassures him, “You’ll use it all up. I’d like you to help me in the backyard for a while.”

  Afterwards Vina, Ma, and Shireen pick up the telephones for their Sunday call-up-long-distance ritual, and Rusty and Diamond go to work in the backyard. The women have cleaned up the vegetable and flower gardens and replenished the soil, the grass is trim; now it is up to the man to fortify the castle against the coming cold season. With his guest’s compliant though unskilled assistance he repairs a wire fence (under which a fox has persistently burrowed that year) and a storm door, replaces storm windows, cleans up and resecures the kitchen exhaust vent where a family of birds had nested in the summer. He works fast and intensely, breathing hard and grunting from the exertions. “Back home we disdained such work,” Rusty says, “here we take pride in it.”

  In the three hours of labour Rusty pointedly avoids the most conspicuous part of the backyard, and Diamond avoids asking him about it; finally they proceed toward it.

  The path of inlaid stone, approaching directly from the side door on the right of the house, proceeds at the back toward a small square building the size of an average room. It has a light blue stucco exterior and an arched studded door under a facade shaped like the section of a dome. A flower bed runs around its sides, in portions of which the two men as their final chore devotedly plant tulips to blossom next spring.

  Having finished, they stand back and appraise each other. Diamond waits for the explanation he has already guessed.

  “This is my shrine to Elvis Raja,” Rusty says. “Let’s wash up and come back.”

  But before returning they have an elaborate afternoon tea with the family, an Indian custom that cannot be violated.

  Rusty waits for him to step inside, then closes the door and turns on the lights. Diamond draws a sharp breath of astonishment; a multitude of colours and images leap out all around him, assaulting his senses.

  It’s a picture of Rustam Mehta’s brain, he tells himself, after a moment’s pause; if you want to know what’s inside it, this is it, this dizzying madness of blatant multicoloured fantasies … and he belongs to another planet, surely.

  The floor is wood, covered in plush white broadloom. There is a smell of paint and carpet, intermingled with incense. Rusty takes off his shoes on a mat just inside the entrance and motions for his guest to do the same, after which they proceed forward. The ceiling is painted in
a geometrical design of alternate blue and beige lines radiating from the centre, to create a crude illusion of the inside of a dome. The wall to their left bustles with myriad miniature Elvis hand paintings. The right wall contains an incomplete mural. And straight ahead lies the sanctum sanctorum of this temple. In the centre of the wall is a large, circular head-and-shoulder portrait of late Elvis painstakingly constructed from chips of tile. “Vina’s handiwork,” Rusty whispers. Around this portrait runs a border containing the words “Elvis King of the World” as well as two words in Hindi script that Diamond can’t read. Bright yellow rays radiate from the central image to the four edges of the wall.

  “And look here,” Rusty says in his low voice, taking a diagonal step to his right and kneeling down.

  On the floor, on a bit of maroon carpet, stand four gaudily painted cutout figures of wood or cardboard. Diamond’s heart flutters as he too kneels to view them fully—they look like Hindu icons, each with the face of Elvis. Elephant-headed pot-bellied Ganesh, with puffy middle-aged, perhaps drug-drenched, Elvis face and leer, the trunk holding a small guitar; monkey-god Hanuman as the rock ’n’ rolling young Elvis in hound-dog pelvis-shaking posture; blue Krishna holding a mike and proffering a benevolent smile; and finally, in the centre, larger than the rest by a head, a black Elvis as Kali the terrible in her dance of death, gorged on blood and guts, her two arms falling over a guitar slung across the neck, and at her feet the skulls of vanquished foes—identified in small handwritten red print as Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

  Away from these four Elvis-as-god icons, to their right, stands a squat stubby silo-like phallus of grey stone, at the tip of which plays a white jumpsuited Elvis with pink face and hands; singing what—Diamond asks himself—”Love Me Tender”?

  Diamond stares at this vision for a long time. He does not know how to respond. It offends, profoundly, yet he isn’t sure how. He turns to look at Rusty, who is going on in dead earnestness, “I had these made in India. It was some job bringing them over intact. What do you think?” He looks puzzled by Diamond’s silence, but says, “Here, take a look at these—”

  An Elvis jumpsuit, white, gold, and silver, hangs ghostlike from a black Ikea coatstand behind the phallus.

  “The King himself wore that, at a concert in Iowa City,” explains Rusty. “I bought it off the widow of the concert-hall manager … didn’t come cheap, but I beat a competitor to it. And now, here’s some more memorabilia—”

  He heads toward a tall, narrow table almost exactly at the centre of the room. Upon it rests a shallow glass case containing an odd assortment of objects: a red, white, and blue neck scarf, still wrinkled at the two ends where it had presumably been tied; a silver button sewn to a piece of white cloth, a lock of black hair, a short length of wire that could be from a guitar string, a shard from a broken singles record, a comb, a jockstrap; a small test tube containing a brown waxlike substance….

  “Don’t ask me how I got that button—it’s from a suit Elvis wore during a concert—after which he gave it to his cousin Gene to hold, then Gene missed his limousine and was chased by a frenzied mob down a street, and finally in desperation he threw the whole expensive suit at them….”

  He falls silent, watches Diamond contemplate the entire room from this central vantage point. Leaving Diamond at the table, he hurries over to the icons in front and lights some incense, and somewhere else he puts on an Elvis version of a gospel song, before returning.

  “Impressed?” he asks. “What do you think?”

  “Yes, I am impressed,” Diamond replies, “I truly am, by all this,” and Rusty glows with emotion.

  “You know—” he says, hesitantly, putting a hand on Diamond’s arm. “I have a … a dream—don’t laugh, please—a dream that in a few decades—perhaps half a century—Elvis will be at the centre of a new world religion that will contain all the other religions. He speaks to so many people from all backgrounds and ages—even in different languages. What was Jesus when be started out? Elvis is much more. And look at the condition of the world today—the hunger and greed … wars and massacres … all the intolerance … Now more than ever we need Elvis. Have you noticed, the letters of his name can be rearranged to read: LIVES?”

  No, Diamond says, he hadn’t noticed that. They go to examine the left wall.

  “This wall is the work of Ma. She used to be an art teacher in India. For several months every morning she would come here and create one image of Elvis.”

  Hundreds of Elvises, from straight copies of movie posters to far-out fantasies—Elvis as Arab prophet kneeling before the angel Gabriel holding in front of him a musical score, Elvis as baby Jesus, Elvis riding on a tiger, Elvis with a beard.

  The incomplete mural on the opposite wall is planned to depict a procession set against a red background, in a desert perhaps, as an allegory of the three stages of life.

  “This is my work. I’m afraid I’m not a very good artist…”

  “I’m sure Raja says I can go now,” Diamond says and smiles as graciously as he can at his hosts. He feels nervous and edgy after the recent experience. Am I in a nuthouse, he asks himself. The three of them have gathered at the dining table. From the TV comes the rasp of pro football commentary.

  “Raja will tell us after dinner,” Rusty says, pleased with Diamond’s remark.

  The phone rings, Rusty goes and picks it up.

  Vina says in the interlude, “It’s so nice you’re here. How did you find Rusty’s museum, hmm?”

  “A little too strong for my taste,” Diamond murmurs.

  “It’s his thing,” she replies softly. “We all need our own madness, don’t we, in order to survive?”

  He looks sharply at her, and she puts her hand on his arm, and he thinks, Would you like to be my madness? She pulls her arm away.

  “That portrait you made for the shrine is very good,” he says.

  “We all pitched in.”

  “By the way,” Diamond says to Rusty coming back from the phone. “Who is Raja?”

  Rusty stops, and says, “Oh. I thought you knew. Didn’t we tell you?”

  “No,” says Diamond. “An oracle of sorts?”

  “An oracle, yes. Raja, my dear friend, is exactly that—King. And who is the King?—He don’t stop playing till his guitar breaks … Elvis, of course,” Rusty proclaims and traipses onward to his chair.

  “You don’t mean—” Diamond sputters helplessly at Vina.

  She comforts him, “We’ll conduct a seance. Don’t worry. It’s quite harmless—and so revealing, you’ll see.”

  There is a short silence, as the couple let him absorb the information. Then Vina says, “My sister Rina’s coming over Tuesday—day after tomorrow. I’d like you to meet her, Diamond. You’ll like her. She’s a beautician—and quite a beauty herself, isn’t she, Rusty? I was always the ugly duckling in the family,” she smiles.

  That must make me a Frankenstein, Diamond thinks glumly. He takes the photo Vina passes him, of herself and her sister Rina, in full pose, in red and blue saris. Yes, the sister is pretty, though a little too tall and forlorn looking, and she doesn’t hold a candle to you my dear, he thinks, meeting Vina’s eye.

  “She is divorced,” Vina says, attempting innocence, “and no children. I do think you should meet her.”

  He goes for a long walk. His Ford Escort is now parked further into the driveway—Vina had asked to move it, now her car is parked behind his. And Vina has his keys. How will he get away if Raja rules against his leaving? Will this place be his prison? He walks up the hill, then comes down to the highway exit, to walk back to the house from the town side. On his way downhill a four-wheel drive passes him at full speed, the two occupants letting off a howl in his vicinity. He wonders if the two are among the Mehtas’ tormenters. Hasn’t anyone thought of taking down licence-plate numbers, or even taking a video of the scene?

  v.

  After dinner the Parker Brothers Ouija board is brought out onto
the cleared dining table, and all take their seats and gather around. The light is dimmed, and letters, numbers, and symbols begin to glow in the semi-dark, as if imbued with their own independent mysterious energy. The planchette is a flat yellow heart-shaped piece of plastic on three stubby legs, with a circular viewing window in the centre. Rusty says, “Move closer, everybody—now the procedure is this: you take hold of the planchette, very lightly, at the edge, with your fingers—you may even just touch it. And with your free hand grab someone else’s free hand—the energy is strong today, there’s all the day’s anticipation focused on this …,” he pauses, “… on this hour. Ready, now?”

  “Yes, let’s begin—” Vina says, giving a shiver of delight, and everybody dutifully places their fingers on the planchette. First Rusty, then Vina, Diamond, and Shireen. Ma is too old to lean forward like the others and simply places a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder. Already the object seems charged with energy, hopping nervously about and raring to go. “Grab somebody’s hand,” Vina says, taking Diamond’s beside her.

  “Are you there—who is it—” Rusty queries in a high pitch.

  Judging by Rusty’s voice, whatever it is, if anything, has to be five or six feet away, Diamond estimates, but he feels no flutter of excitement, no suspense, no supernatural vibrations in the air—or is it ether, he wonders, in this context? He allows his hand to be carried along with the others’ by the planchette as it jumps and slides about before landing on “A.”

  “No, I want to communicate with Raja, are you there, Raja?”

  But “A” is persistent; he turns out to be Asim, and he has a message for Nafisa; he still loves her. Having delivered this message, not saying who or where Nafisa is, Asim leaves. There is a long pause. Diamond senses Vina’s hand, soft and pliable in his, and he squeezes it. There is no resistance.