Where Men Once Walked

by Mark L Watson

  “Since about day three” he called back without looking around.

  “Is this an Air Force base, or have you just taken control of it because it’s closed?”

  The officer looked around to him briefly, frowning and smiling at the same time and seemingly confused by the Dutchman’s questioning.

  “This is Maintenance Command for the entire Indian Air Force and has been since nineteen fifty five, it was civilian too but now as you can see we have been given the run of the place”

  He pushed open the security door and the double door beyond it and let them into what had once been the airport’s onsite accommodation facility. The reception desk stood empty and only the emergency lighting illuminated the deep blue carpeted hallway.

  He reached behind the desk and grabbed the first room keys that came to hand and passed them all to the kid.

  “You can clean up here. You understand for security I must lock you in here. Call one thousand from this phone on the desk when you are finished and somebody will come for you. There are some others here too I think so do not be surprised. Please take your time”

  They thanked him and he went out through the doors and pulled them closed and locked them from the outside.

  They each took a key and found their room in the darkened hallway and opened and went inside. The beds were still made and, though the room was hot and stuffy and dusty and windowless and without electricity, they felt for the briefest of moments entirely free and each man got the flicker of a comfort lost to the old world.

  The kid closed his door behind him and stood for some time in the entrance to the room and looked at the bed still made and the little upturned teacups and his smile drained away and for the first time he felt utterly sad.

  He flicked the light switch on and off though he knew nothing would happen and sat down on the edge of the bed. A poster on the wall above the dresser advertised duty-free shopping and the little folded card gave the numbers once called for room service. He pulled off his boots and laid back on the bed and immediately felt himself drifting out of consciousness.

  He forced himself back upright. He pulled off the filthy shirt and carried it through into the bathroom and tossed it into the sink and took off his socks and his trousers and tossed them in too and turned the tap. It ran cold for a few moments then coughed and he was relieved that it started to warm and he held his hand under it until it was hot. He stood and watched the sink fill and the water start to brown as it soaked his clothes and he took the little sachets of shampoo and squeezed them into the water and ran his hand around in the basin to mix it. He removed his underwear and put it into the water and stood for some time looking at his naked body in the bathroom mirror. He was beaten and bruised and blistered and striped with different shades of colour and his neck and arms were burned and his feet were red and sore and his nails were long and broken and his hair and beard were longer than he had ever seen them.

  He ran the bath and sat down on the toilet seat fully naked and watched it fill. The bathroom was silent and he realised that it was the first real time he had been alone since leaving the hostel that morning weeks ago. He felt the emotions inside him cloud his thoughts and he felt heavy and his eyes welled up with tears though he didn’t know why.

  He stepped into the bath and sat down into the water in the dark and laid back and felt dead.

  Without knowing he had fallen asleep and he was snapped awake some time later by knocking on the door of his room. He sat and listened and the door knocked again and he pulled himself up out of the filthy water and wrapped a towel around himself and stepped out into the bedroom. A young cadet stood at his door with some clean folded clothes in his arms and called the kid sir and handed them to him and nodded and left. He closed the door and dried himself and pulled on the black trousers and the white t-shirt and looked at himself in the mirror. The door knocked again and this time he was greeted by the Dutchman standing there clean with his dreadlocks down on his shoulders dripping water on the new clothes he had been given. He held a small white teacup in his hand filled with black coffee and stepped inside.

  “The minibar only has nuts and juice in it, what the hell?”

  The kid laughed.

  They sat on the twin beds together and drank the coffee and after some time had passed without the American’s arrival they went into the hallway and knocked on his door and he didn’t answer and they knocked again. A muffled shout came from inside and they waited further and eventually heard him moving around inside the room.

  The door clicked and opened and the American stood there in his trousers with his t-shirt sunburn and rugged beard.

  “There’s no damn liquor in the minibar” he said, scowling at them.

  They both laughed.

  “Get dressed man, we gotta get outta here” the Dutchman said to him, stepping inside the room.

  He picked up the new shirt he had been given and pulled it over his head and couldn’t get it any further and tried to get his arm into it and couldn’t and pulled it off again and tossed it onto the floor and pulled on his original shirt instead.

  The kid walked to the reception area and picked up the phone and called the number and waited and when it was answered he told the man on the phone that they were ready to leave. A while later the door was unlocked and a cadet waved them out and they followed him through the doors and around the building and back into the terminal at the side entrance.

  The kid moved forward and walked beside the cadet.

  “Can I ask you to do something?”

  The cadet looked at him and looked back and carried on walking.

  “We need to get to the coast”

  “They will help you in training command” he replied.

  The kid shook his head.

  “No they won’t, we’re of no importance to them but we have a critical mission objective and it is vital we make it safely to the coast, and we will need help doing so”

  The cadet looked at him again and thought about this and didn’t say anything.

  “I will ask my superior if there is anything he”

  The kid cut him off.

  “No no, you can’t do that, I need you to tell me which of your forces are heading east from here and you need to get us on one of their vehicles”

  The cadet pushed open the double doors back into the departure lounge with the closed up shops and cafes.

  “Sir I do not have the authority to allow anything like this”

  The American and the Dutchman had hushed behind them as they listened to the interchange.

  “Do you know of any force headed east?” he asked again.

  The cadet exhaled deeply.

  “Well” he started, “I do but”

  “And where would we find them? Are they here?”

  The cadet turned and looked him in the eye.

  “Sir I would be reprimanded if my superiors thought that I was giving information to foreign military”

  The kid put his hand up onto the cadets shoulder as they walked back into the security area and the cadet stopped and looked about and looked back into the kid’s eyes.

  “I do not know which companies are travelling to where sir, this information will only be known at command, you have to understand this. My orders are to escort you from the premises here but I will try to help”

  He looked around again.

  “There is a bar called The Junction in Khare Town north of here, find it and go there tonight at ten and I will see you there. I will have the information you need”

  He looked around, his eyes wide in fear of somebody watching but nobody was.

  “Now go, get out”

  The kid gripped his shoulder and thanked him and he led them through the doors into the main concourse and to the exit and they passed the guards at the door and walked out into the evening without saying another word.

  They walked the long driveway from the airport to the main road and military trucks and cars passed them in each dir
ection and at the end of the driveway the guards in the checkpoint watched them keenly as they neared.

  “Which way’s north, brothers?” the American called to them.

  They took a moment to respond and they frowned at him and squinted in the sun and eventually one of them motioned his hand to his left and pointed up the road without saying a word and the guards all watched them as they left.

  The road north was straight and long and the sun was hanging low behind the buildings to the west and a breeze blew behind them from the south and cooled them only a little as they walked. The houses at the roadside were built behind tall stone walls and tall iron gates and they could not tell whether their state of disrepair was owing to the disaster or otherwise. A group of children approached them and begged money and food from them and when they denied the children their requests they became angry. A boy of no older than ten or eleven and wearing a dusty vest and no shoes began to shout at the kid and when he smiled to him the boy swung a punch. The kid laughed and pushed the boy aside and then another boy pulled a flickknife from his belt and swiped it at the men. The American caught his arm mid-swing and squeezed his wrist and took the knife from him and tossed it over the wall of a house and pushed the boy back and they shouted and cursed as they ran away.

  The stores on the road were closed and some had been looted and smashed and burned and young men sat on corners and on front steps and watched the men as they walked and before long it was growing dark at the west.

  “What time is it now?” the Dutchman asked.

  The men shook their heads and said they didn’t know and the kid said that the sun wasn’t long down and so it would probably be between seven and eight.

  “Well we’re going to need to know one way or another if we’re meeting this guy at ten”

  They nodded.

  “We don’t even know where the place is”

  At the top of the road where their route bent to the west they were met by the wall of trees surrounding the huge Environmental Research facility and the road was blocked by military personnel.

  “You cannot go north here” the man called to them and when they asked why he told them that the road there led to the jailhouse and that the area was under strict control.

  “What time is it?” the Dutchman called.

  “Nearly nine” the man called back.

  They headed west instead along the south wall of the research facility and rounded the corner and followed the wall north past the huge dusty dome of the Buddhist shrine. Even though it was dark there was a crowd gathered there and many were on their knees in the courtyard in the dust and dirt and the line of flags that stretched out along the tarmac were billowing gently in the evening breeze and in that quiet place there was a calm that exuded outwards and affected them all as they passed.

  The towering glass and metal structure of the central mall rose from the darkness and, though it had once been illuminated by white floodlights and neons and advertising and there was a cinema there and a string of cafes, the place was a shadow of what it had once been. It sat dark and broken and immense and the cafes were boarded up and there were men fighting in the forecourt over a water barrel.

  Two policemen stood against their parked car at the edge of the road and watched the men fight and shouted to them and smoked and laughed and did nothing at all to intervene.

  The American approached them and they stopped and looked at him and said nothing.

  “Evening” he said to them as he walked over.

  Neither officer replied and they frowned at him for Nagpur was no place to see American Air Force or Dutchmen with blonde dreadlocks.

  “Do you know where the Junction bar is?”

  The officers shook their heads.

  “Come on man, The Junction, it’s a bar in Khare Town. That here?”

  He circled his finger around in the air.

  The older officer shook his head again. The younger one nodded.

  The American turned back and looked over his shoulder at the Dutchman who shrugged.

  “Is this Khare Town?” he asked again.

  The younger officer pointed across the forecourt of the shopping centre with the cigarette between his two fingers.

  “It is there”

  “Where?”

  “There. This way. You are quite close”

  The American thanked them and they turned along the road to the west and followed it through the dark. A group of motorcycles roared down the road with their riders shouting to each other and somewhere in the distance they heard gunshots echo against the darkness and shadows danced in the dark, always out of view, and they stayed close to each other as they walked. Nagpur was in a pointedly better state than Patna and the place was at the least still functioning as a town, if only by habit, though there was no trade being done there anymore for the people could not import their goods and there were no tourists, if ever there had been any. Dogs lay dead in gardens and cars were abandoned at all angles and doors and windows were boarded and locked and homes were in lockdown.

  They stopped again at the next junction and looked to the sky to determine the hour from the moon and though they could not be wholly sure the men worried it was already ten or later. They asked a passing man if he knew of the bar and he said he did and they thanked him and he told them to head two blocks north and they would find it but he said that he did not know the time.

  Two blocks north they spotted the bar sign hanging vertically from the front wall of the building. There were clothes and towels hanging from the balcony above it and dead vines along the side of the stonework and a string of red lightbulbs hanging across the entrance flickering. The old wooden door was carved with the word Junction and showed a painting of an old steam train and the windows were covered in whitewash paint and a paper sign stuck to the window advertised it as being open and nothing more.

  The kid pushed open the door to the small room. A wooden bar ran along the far wall carved ornately from dark wood that had long lost its shine and was chipped and scraped and high stools of cedarwood stood on the old red carpet, occupied by a few ragtag men who turned to look at them as they entered. Three low wooden tables of differing designs were surrounded by chairs and stools and old candles burned in jars on each of them.

  The barman was old though his weathered face and its deep creases were as much indications of stress and the graft of life than of the years alone. He leaned against the back of the bar smoking from a long pipe and watching the men.

  They approached the bar.

  “Evening” the Dutchman said to him, nodding.

  He nodded back to them and took the pipe from his mouth and licked his lips and put it back in. He looked the Dutchman in the eyes.

  “We’re meeting someone here” the Dutchman said.

  The man looked along the bar and blew a thin wisp of smoke from his nostrils.

  “You want to drink?” he asked.

  “We have no money” the Dutchman said, “we are just meeting someone here, can we sit and wait?”

  “You must drink”

  The Dutchman nodded.

  “Do you know the time?”

  The old man looked him in the eyes for a moment and looked at the wall clock and pointed to it.

  “Ten twenty” he said, “drink?”

  The Dutchman shook his head.

  “We don’t have any money, we’ll wait outside for him to arrive”

  The man frowned and turned to the back bar and took three small round glasses from the dusty wooden shelf and put them on the bartop and reached and took a bottle with no label and poured a measure of brown liquid into each glass and nodded and walked away.

  They thanked the man and he just nodded and they were unsure whether the man had understood what they had said and may soon expect payment but they took the glasses of the alcohol and went to the table and sat. The four other men who were in the bar didn’t leave their seats and at times they talked to one another but long periods went by wh
en none spoke at all and nobody entered the bar and nobody left. Barely discernible music played from somewhere.

  When the wall clock was showing fifteen minutes to eleven and their glasses were empty the door opened and the young cadet walked in quickly. He was out of uniform but they recognised him by his thin moustache and gelled hair and he looked briefly at the barman and walked to the table.

  They all stood and the American offered his hand to shake but the cadet didn’t shake it and sat down on the stool.

  “I must be quick” he said, just above a whisper.

  The men all leaned in to the table.

  “At ten hundred tomorrow the eleventh infantry leave Nagpur for Gandhinagar with six trucks. It will take them two days to make this journey. The brother of my wife, Neeraj, is an officer here and he will get you on one of these trucks but it will not be simple and will not be authorised by central command”

  They listened.

  “About ten or twelve kilometres north of this place the road moves through the colony for Power Reserve workers, you will see the electricity towers and the lake there. To the west of the road you will see a shrine and a statue of the god Ganesha made of stone. Be there and they will take you with them”

  He looked about as though he were being watched but nobody was paying them any notice and the men thought that perhaps the young cadet fancied himself a secret agent for he moved quickly and kept looking over his shoulder but there was no interest in him or in any of his activities, there or elsewhere.

  “I must go”

  They quietly thanked him and he disappeared out of the door in a flash and into the night from where he came and they waited a few moments and stood too and nodded thanks to the barman who was standing against the backbar with the pipe hanging from his mouth and he nodded back and they left.

  They walked north into the night, hungry and thirsty and tired. They passed through the grounds of the law school and passed the court buildings and some time further they passed though the grounds of the college though it had long been closed down and many of the buildings were vandalised and looted and torched. A group of homeless individuals some twenty strong sat around on the steps and drank and shouted and watched the men pass. The kid looked at the Dutchman and the American and thought that the homeless men there probably saw him through the same eyes with which he saw them. He thought himself no different from those men and he wondered whether they had been homeless before the disaster had hit their world and what fate had brought them to that place in the dead of the night and whether at some time fate would land him in a similar place.