by Anita Nair
Three more lines and he will be finished. Hurry up, I want to tell Shyam. Can’t you see Chris doesn’t care whether it has a five-speed gearbox or independent front suspension?
‘The suspension is what makes an Amby, as we call it, perfect for Indian roads. Now, I could get a Japanese or a Korean car or even a Ford, but in ten years, while my Amby will still run, these new cars will be scrap.’
Chris wipes his forehead and asks, ‘But how do we all fit in?’
Uncle, who hasn’t uttered a word for a while now, beckons to the driver of an autorickshaw. Chris says, ‘I’ll go with him. Problem solved, right?’
He opens the rear door of the car and lays his cello carefully on the seat.
Shyam doesn’t say anything. I know he isn’t pleased. There was so much more he had planned on telling Chris.
Uncle turns to me and says, ‘We’ll be at the resort before you. Where do I take him?’
‘Cottage No. 12,’ I say. ‘But first, do take him to the restaurant for breakfast. We’ll meet you there.’
I know that Shyam wants Chris to have the best cottage, the one closest to the river and farthest away from the main building. Chris, Shyam hopes, will include a glowing account of Near-the-Nila in the travel book he is writing.
So we drive to the resort, Shyam and I wedged in the front seat with the driver.
In the back lies the cello, a proxy passenger, foreign and aloof and stirring in me much of what I have steeled myself to never feel again.
I turn to glance at Shyam’s face. Shyam is handsome. His skin is light and smooth; though he shaves every morning, by late noon, a bluish shadow appears, hinting at facial hair that he keeps ruthlessly under control. His features are even and chiselled; his body straight and supple; his hair jet black, abundant and neatly combed. He looks like a popular Malayalam film star. An action hero. Shyam knows that other women look at him. That he incites interest and perhaps even lust. I, however, feel nothing for him except perhaps a habitual annoyance.
I see that Shyam is upset with how the morning has progressed and suddenly I feel a pang of pity for him.
The car ride back to the resort is usually one of the highlights for him. Down the main road, and then Shyam would point to a stack of chimney towers by the river and say, ‘That used to belong to Radha’s family. The oldest tile factory in the region.’
‘This,’ he would say, pointing to a modern three-storey building, ‘used to be a cinema house. Murugan Talkies. It belonged to Radha’s grandfather. Some years ago, it burned down and this came up instead.’
And so the list would continue. A shopping complex. A rice mill. A row of houses. A rubber plantation. A mango orchard. A line of coconut trees …all of which my family own or once owned.
Then it would be his turn. This was the moment he waited for, when he could point out his trail of acquisitions, leading up to Near-the-Nila. And sometimes, me. He has been cheated of this, I think now.
Everyone in Shoranur knows everything about us. It is only with strangers that Shyam knows the measure of his triumph.
I pat his arm and say, ‘Don’t be upset. There will be more opportunities.’
Shyam’s eyes bore into mine. ‘What are you saying? What makes you think I am upset? I’m just annoyed. Who does he think we are? His porters? To follow with his bags and his silly buffalo of an instrument …’
‘Ssh …’ I try to calm him down.
Shyam has an exaggerated sense of self-worth. Or perhaps it isn’t as exaggerated as it is reduced. He sees slights where none are intended. And for this, too, ‘Radha’s family’ is to blame.
Suddenly I know what it is I feel for Shyam. Neither pity nor even affection. Just responsible.
‘I know, I know,’ I say.
Shyam slides his fingers through his hair, which parts and falls back. Once, I used to run my fingers through it. Now, when I look at it, all I feel is a certain detached interest.
‘You need a haircut,’ I say, trying to change Shyam’s mood.
‘Do you think so?’ he asks, tugging at a lock to check its length. It doesn’t matter if he thinks otherwise. Shyam will cut his hair because I’ve asked him to.
Shyam would bring me the moon if I asked him to.
The car sinks into a pothole and lurches out, on to the road. The cello in the back moves precariously. ‘Stop,’ I tell the driver and we pull to the side of the road.
I get out and try to move the instrument case into a safer position. I think of what’s within. The burnish of the wood, the satiny feel. I let my fingers slide along its length in a swift furtive caress. How is it that I have begun to care about something I haven’t even seen before? How is it that I know that within this case is perhaps the most beautiful thing I would ever see in my life? I feel dread swamp me again.
When I sit beside Shyam, he smiles approvingly. ‘The last thing we need is that instrument damaged. We don’t want him going back and giving our resort, or our roads, caustic notices. Though I wish he had brought something easier to transport. Like a flute, maybe?’ He sniggers.
The driver’s mouth stretches into a smile. ‘Do you think he’s a flute man?’ he asks, impishness flaring in his eyes.
Shyam darts me a quick look and grins. ‘You never know with these arty types! I suggest you keep your distance, anyway.’
They smile at each other, pleased with their gutter humour. With being able to be ribald in my presence, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t understand.
Playing the flute. Cocksucker. Wimp. Low-life …They don’t really mean it, I tell myself.
I keep my face expressionless. Shyam has forgotten what I know. Shyam has forgotten that I have lived outside this protected world he likes to keep me in.
In that hot car, I feel cold and shivery. I feel alone. I lay my hand on my thigh, palm up. I wish Shyam would take it. If he does, all will be well, I think.
My hand lies there, open and untouched. And then it occurs to me why I would never ask Shyam for the moon.
I hate having to ask.
Shyam
Why is Radha wearing her ‘the woes of the world are on me’ face? Sometimes she tires me with her unhappiness. What is she unhappy about?
I am the one who has a rightful claim to unhappiness, but I have put it all behind me. And so should she. Besides, we now have Near-the-Nila, apart from everything else.
I knew that taking Uncle with us to the railway station was a bad idea. I had told Radha so. But she was adamant. ‘Christopher is coming here to meet Uncle. And Uncle’s very keen to go with us.’
‘I know,’ I tried to persuade her. ‘But we don’t want him to focus only on Uncle.’
‘Shyam,’ she said, in that tone that makes me want to slap her. As if I were a little child who had to be made to see sense. ‘As far as Christopher Stewart is concerned, Near-the-Nila is just another resort. If we shove it into his face, he’ll either be dismissive about it or ignore it totally. He’s staying with us, isn’t he? We have all the time to woo him and impress him with everything you want to impress him with. But right now, we mustn’t forget that Uncle is his top priority.’
I said nothing. I could see what she was getting at, but I didn’t want to admit it. Uncle, I knew, would put in a good word for us. Put in many good words for Near-the-Nila.
He is very fond of me. He is Radha’s uncle, but he has much affection for me. I know that. I think it is because the two of us, he and I, have only a precarious hold on the bloodline. We are outsiders, after all. Though, when I said this to Uncle, he glowered at me as if I were a fly in his paal kanji and snapped, ‘I really don’t understand what you are talking about. They are my family. Sometimes, Shyam, you talk a lot of nonsense!’
I said nothing. I didn’t mind Uncle snapping at me. I know the truth, as he does. As much as Uncle might claim kinship, he is only Radha’s father’s half-brother. And nothing is going to change that. He is as much an outsider as I am. So it is natural that we watch out for each ot
her.
Which is why, when Christopher wrote to Uncle asking if he could find him a house to rent for the three months he intended to be here, I emailed him back offering him Cottage No. 12 at the resort, at a very reasonable rate.
Radha had smiled and patted my arm. ‘That’s very generous of you, Shyam. Uncle is happy that you are doing this and that, too, for a stranger!’
The light in her eyes made me want to sing. Usually Radha’s eyes are like the bulbs in the evening. Just barely alive. So how could I tell her that when Uncle showed me the letter, I had copied Christopher Stewart’s name on a piece of paper and done a random search on him on the Net? Or that I had discovered that he wrote a column for a travel magazine and regularly contributed travel features to several publications all over the western world? I knew that this was perhaps one way of getting into the international tour circuit without paying a hefty commission to tour operators. Christopher promptly mailed me back saying he was delighted and that he had visited our website and though he seldom did such pieces, he thought, given what he had read about Near-the-Nila, it might be possible to write a small piece about the resort.
I was puzzled by the foreigner’s interest in Uncle. It isn’t as if he is a world famous performer. Uncle is not so well known, even in India. There is no point in discussing this with Radha, however. She springs to Uncle’s defence if I make even a casual remark about his lack of success. ‘Not everybody is like you, Shyam. Money isn’t everything,’ she said once. ‘People make choices, you know. This is Uncle’s. He is happy with his art and that is enough for him. A successful artist isn’t always a good artist or even a happy one.’
I didn’t say anything then. Sometimes she talks utter nonsense and there is no use trying to make her see things any other way.
I looked at Radha’s face again. ‘I am happy that Uncle’s true worth is finally being recognized and I am glad that I can be part of that …facilitate his recognition in some way,’ I finished lamely, wondering if I was overdoing it. But the truth is that as I spoke those words, I knew that I really did feel that way. I am fond of Uncle, very fond of him, though I don’t think I will ever understand him. Or why he does what he does.
Such as going away in the autorickshaw and taking Christopher Stewart with him before I could even tell him what to expect at the resort. It isn’t that I particularly wanted to be with the foreigner. Now that I’ve met him, I don’t think I like him all that much. He’s much too young, for one. I expected an older man and he can’t be more than thirty-two or thirty-three years old. Maybe it’s also because Uncle couldn’t seem to take his eyes off him. As for Radha, it wasn’t that her eyes were as bright as emergency lamps, but they seemed to shimmer.
What the attraction is, I can’t understand. He’s pleasant looking enough, but then so is my driver Shashi. As for that music case …he’s here only for a few months. Why did he have to bring it along? How did he bring it with him on the aircraft? I must remember to ask him.
I must admit that the first glimpse of Chris standing there on the platform did clutch at my throat. It was like a photograph. One of those old photographs with curling edges, of a perfect stranger. You look at it and without knowing why, you feel a strange connection with the person in it, so much so you think you can’t rest till you have it framed and hanging on your wall. That was how I felt in that first moment. The next moment, I saw that two more days of unshaven chin and he would look like a backpacking budget tourist. The kind I certainly don’t want staying at my resort, lest they drive the big spenders away. I will have to find a way to tell him that I can’t allow that …what is the word, the grunge look. Maybe I can couch it as a joke. I will also have to teach him the right way to pronounce my name. Is it so difficult to say Shyam?
I could have done all this if he’d been with us. Instead, he ran off with Uncle and left us to bring his bags. Bastard!
Each time I look at Near-the-Nila, I feel a great frisson of excitement shoot through me. This is mine, I tell myself, all of it, from the concept to the last tile. If it wasn’t for me, Shoranur would have remained a dying railway town. Now there is a trickle of life, which I have breathed into it. I, Shyam, twice removed poor nephew and outsider. It is I who have done this, not the heaving bulwark of Radha’s family.
Outside the gates we stop and I look at the two lions seated on the gateposts, on either side of the black metal gate topped with gold-coloured spikes.
I had the lions painted gold to match the spikes. They glitter in the sunlight, my twin lions, and I feel that swell of pride again.
Radha hates my lions. ‘I told you gold was the wrong colour. They look so garish. I wish you had left them as they were. White. Or, if you wanted colour, why not terracotta?’
‘I hate terracotta,’ I say.
‘In which case, why don’t you paint the roof tiles gold as well?’ she says in that other voice she reserves for me, tinged with scorn and frilled with contempt.
I ignore her. I don’t want us to quarrel. So I do what I usually do when I want to avert a squabble. ‘Shashi,’ I ask, ‘is your wife back?’
Shashi’s wife works in a tailoring shop and supplements her income by sewing bedcovers and pillowcases for the resort. I am all for promoting local industry.
Radha mutters, ‘Fuck!’
I pretend not to hear her. I don’t think the driver has heard her, either. I don’t think he knows the word. His English doesn’t extend to fuck, I think.
‘Fuck,’ she says again. ‘Fuck the tiles. Fuck the lions. Fuck you.’
‘Shashi!’ I raise my voice to smother hers. ‘I’d like Ammu to start work on the pillowcases right away. We need six sets urgently.’
That settles Radha as I knew it would.
We drive into the resort and when the car pulls into the portico, I time the doorman. He has an allotted time of two minutes to welcome the guest and open the car door before the guest does.
Sebastian, the new recruit, takes four minutes. He is an impressive looking man, six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a great handlebar moustache. While I did hire him for his looks, I expect some efficiency. He’s been told this. I will have to call a meeting later this evening, I think. Radha could do so much here, but she chooses to flit in and flit out. That reminds me—I wonder if the gardener’s assistant has remembered to spray Flit around Cottage No. 12. Can’t have mosquitoes sucking Christopher Stewart’s blood and virility away. I want him alive and well and willing to write paeans about Near-the-Nila.
‘What is this?’ Radha asks.
I hear the surprise in her voice. I turn and walk to where she is. There are several trees along the driveway and there amidst the trees stands Padmanabhan, tearing the fronds off a palm leaf and stuffing them into his mouth.
‘Oh, is Padmanabhan here already?’ I ask.
‘What is this elephant doing here?’ Radha demands.
‘Nothing in particular.’ I try to inject breeziness into my voice.
‘Then why is it here?’
I shrug. ‘This is Kerala. How can it be Kerala unless we have an elephant?’
‘But we don’t have an elephant, Shyam.’ She stares at me. ‘Have you bought this creature?’
‘Don’t be silly. Much as I would like to own an elephant, I can’t afford to. I fixed this deal with the elephant’s owner. We have the palms that elephants like to feed on and a few leaves from the trees aren’t going to cost me anything. I also pay the mahout a small wage. So you see, everyone is happy. The elephant, the elephant’s owner and the mahout. In return, the elephant has to be brought to the resort twice a day, except when he has to attend a temple pooram or garland some visiting MP. Don’t you think it’s a good idea? My guests will get to see an elephant really close, perhaps even feed him a hand of bananas. It all adds to the atmosphere.’
‘But it’s such a damn cliché. Kerala and elephants …it makes us look foolish.’ The scorn in her words eat away my smile.
‘Clichés are clichés beca
use they are true. Besides, I’m not wrong in saying my guests expect it. Look, you go to Rajasthan and you expect to see camels. You come to Kerala and you expect to see elephants. Tourists like these things. It makes travel exciting for them. Seeing things they don’t see at home, doing things they don’t do at home.’
‘If you ask me, I think it’s in poor taste!’
I give up. Radha, I have learnt, very often dissents for the sake of dissent. So I smile and say, ‘Never mind.’ And then, something perverse in me makes me add, ‘Can you truthfully say that you don’t pass an elephant on the road almost every day?’
Radha sighs. ‘It could be the same elephant. For heaven’s sake!’
‘How do you know?’ I ask slyly.
‘Grow up, Shyam!’ She stomps away.
I stand there admiring Padmanabhan for a while. His tusks gleam in the light. I walk towards him. The mahout smiles. ‘Don’t you want to be introduced?’ he asks.
I nod.
The elephant moves. The chains around his feet jingle.
‘Is it safe to go near him?’ I ask. He seems enormous.
‘He’s as gentle as a baby,’ the mahout grins.
I stroke the baby’s trunk and feel something warm gather within me. One day you will be mine, I think.
I walk to the reception. ‘Are they here?’ I ask.
Unni, the reception clerk, smiles. Unni is a prince; a descendant of a branch of the royal family that lived in this region. He has a university degree and little else. When I decided to start the resort, I offered him a job. He’s smart and efficient, and in the course of a conversation with my guests, I let it drop that he is a prince. They like the thought, too. Of having a prince call them a taxi and arrange shopping expeditions and sell them postcards. Some of them go to the other extreme and almost apologize for having to ask him for their room key. Unni doesn’t mind either way. After a few days of working for me, he said, ‘I just wish I was a full-fledged raja. It would please them better to be able to say “Maharaja, two postcards please.” ’