by Ashok Banker
He awakes at god-knows-what-time to feel something nuzzling at his shoes. He stirs jerkily and a cat-sized bandicoot rat backtracks several steps. The red eyes gleam fearlessly at him in the darkness.
Jay reaches slowly for the matchbox, opens it with one hand, places a matchstick against the side and flicks the burning stick at the monster from the sewers. The stick falls short, briefly illuminating large bristling whiskers like the antennae of an enormous cockroach, then he sees the dark shadow scurrying away towards the hospital. It jumps up a drainpipe and enters into a window which he knows belongs to the hospital kitchen because he heard dish-washing sounds from there just before he fell asleep. The rat admits itself into the hospital with the practised air of a regular patron at a country club.
Sometime towards dawn, his head strikes the concrete wall and he comes awake with a start. His first impression on awakening is that he is in his bedroom in his mother's house, and she is calling out to him from her room. The sky is the colour of vomit. He stretches his muscles, popping his joints. His eyes are encrusted with dried mucous.
His back hurts, not from the lack of a bed, but because of the weight of the paunch he's been growing steadily for the last year. His head throbs and thrums, aching spasmodically at the touch of the cold morning breeze.
He thinks about his mother's flat. It belongs to him now, of course; she had made out the nomination when she bought the flat itself. He remembers how she saved up to pay the down payment on the flat, months before the foundation was laid, then struggled to make the instalments as each slab was set, finally taking a ten-year loan to repay the balance which she then finished paying off just before Jay's fourteenth birthday. That was the only year she didn't give him a birthday party. That was also the year her drinking became a menace and she was gently but firmly pushed out of her job at the saree store.
He thinks of the years she struggled to earn a living, to feed herself and him, to educate him, raise him; the dreams she had of a better life some day; the dreams he had of earning a great fortune and taking her away someplace where she could live a normal life again. Now, he has the flat worth almost forty lakhs; he could sell it and buy a cottage in Goa for less than half that sum, and they could live comfortably on the remainder for the rest of their lives. In Goa, her drinking would be normal, not excessive. She’d be just another tipsy Catholic, not the mad drunkard she is here. And he? He would spend all day on the beaches, play football perhaps, ride a motorcycle, make love to the lithe baked Goan girls, practise his guitar in the soft vermilion sunsets, read all the books he wants, maybe even start that novel he's always dreamed of writing, the one about an alcoholic mother and her angst-ridden son. They could do it now. They have the fortune. But where is she?
Her name is spelled wrong on the hospital death certificate. This being the official document, the mistake will be carried on to the municipal death certificate, the burial certificate, the burial records, the parish register, everything. He tries to explain this to the morgue clerk who has had the certificate all night yet has chosen to give it to him only now, but the man shrugs and insists that nothing can be done.
Jay forces himself to remain calm and gives the man a bribe of fifty rupees just to allow him to find the doctor in charge and have the error rectified. The man agrees promptly and accompanies Jay. The doctor in charge has gone off duty, and the morgue clerk gives him a
‘see I told you’ look and starts towards the stairs. Jay sees a young intern talking to a lab assistant at the door to pathology, and goes over to him . The intern helps him find another doctor who has the authority to rectify the error and the doctor does this without a moment's hesitation. Jay feels a knot of hatred building up towards the paan-lipped morgue clerk. He remembers the undertaker's caution not to overtip the morgue clerks and tells the clerk to keep the body ready by 11, at which time he will return and give him another fifty. The clerk nods his head vigorously and says ‘ ha, ha, bhai’, with the tone of a child being told to brush his teeth.
The municipal clerk in charge of issuing burial certificates isn't at his desk when Jay arrives at the just-opened municipal ward office next to Bandra Police Station. He has to wait forty minutes before the man shows up. He has been on a tea break, immediately after opening office. But to his credit, he does the job quickly, handing Jay the burial certificate in less than five minutes, and accepting the ten rupees Jay offers him for chai-pani. But it's ten to eleven when he gets into an auto to go to St. Andrew’s and he still has so much to do.
When he returns to the morgue at 11.43, sweating, eyes gritty with lack of sleep, head throbbing with a monster headache, bladder bursting to release urine, he is told by the waiting funeral attendant that not only have the morgue clerks not cleaned and prepared the body but they have refused to allow it to be released. Burning with dull cold fury, Jay strides into the morgue office and finds two new clerks on duty. They inform him that the night clerks went off duty at 10 a.m. and left no instructions about any bodies to be released. He chokes his anger down and asks them, in a voice strained and cracked with fatigue and emotion, to please prepare the body now, as the funeral is to take place in less than fifteen minutes. The clerks react to this as if they have been accused of murder. One shoots off a barrage of Marathi at Jay, asking him if he thinks they are his servants to be ordered about at will. He retorts that they are, as a matter of fact, public servants, and that this is the only function they are paid to fulfil, so why don't they get the hell on with it. An argument breaks out, the consequence of which is that the morgue clerks flatly refuse to have anything to do with the body. Jay is furious enough to physically attack them by now, but he is reminded by the funeral attendant that the priest will probably be waiting at the cemetery by now and may not wait long. Damn you, Jay says to the morgue clerks, and kicks open the door of the morgue. I'll do it myself.
The funeral attendant follows him into the ice-cold world of preserved death. The place consists simply of pale-yellow large stone tiles on the floor and aluminium cupboards containing the bodies. Jay slides open the drawer in which he saw his mother being put last night. She is frozen stiff, yellow and shrivelled like a chicken from the freezer. Her eyes are frozen open, her arms are frozen shut in a supplicant gesture upon her chest. This makes it virtually impossible to get her arms into the sleeves of the dress he has brought along. The funeral attendant rips the dress down the back and wraps it around her in a convincing semblance of normal wear; but the arms still won't go into the sleeves. It is five past noon now and as Jay wrestles with his mother's dead body, terrified of bending the arm too much and hearing a sickening crack, he remembers that today is the special presentation on Chamatkar to the Americans. ‘Leave it,’ he says to the funeral attendant who is still trying bravely to get the sleeves on.
‘I want the coffin kept closed anyway.’
He and the funeral attendant load the coffin on to the hearse, watched by the sullen morgue attendants. Jay turns back to them, filled with the bursting need to release his anger in some way, to destroy these inhuman city-calloused bastards. ‘Take,’ he yells at them, flinging money at them, ‘TAKE!’ flinging the notes on their startled faces, TAKE!’ then turning and getting into the cab of the hearse beside the driver and the unhappy funeral attendant.
The priest accepts his apologies without replying, then questions the funeral attendant in Konkani. The man replies sullenly, nodding his head at Jay accusingly. Jay nods, his jaw working. ‘Yes, father, it was my fault. All my fault.’
The priest says the usual prayers, the ashes to ashes and dust to dust part being the only thing audible over the sound of traffic from the adjoining road and the chatter of the grave-diggers at work on another new grave nearby. He sprinkles holy water on the coffin and crosses himself one last time. Jay offers him a contribution to the parish fund which he accepts. The grave-diggers fill in the grave. The funeral attendant knocks the sloppily painted wooden cross into the loose soil. Jay notices a piece of bleached bo
ne in the hole where his mother is being interred; the chief grave-digger shrugs and explains that the bodies are kept here for only six months, after which the relatives have the option of transferring the remains to special memorial boxes at the other end of the cemetery or letting the remains be thrown away. Jay realizes without any particular emotion that this is not an exceptional fact in a city oozing out of its seams; you push your way into the world at birth, and after death, you share your grave with a few dozen other citizens. Democracy.
chapter fifty
The first thing he feels as he leaves the cemetery is hunger. He hasn't eaten a meal in a day and a half. He sees a Chinese restaurant just down the street, across the road. He goes in. It is a small place, just six tables with three-seater sofas. The walls are painted red in oil paint; below the AC, seepage has caused the paint to peel. Two enormous bamboo fans are hung on each of the other walls, poorly painted with dragons and snakes. At the far end is a door that leads to both kitchen and toilet.
He orders the first thing that comes to mind, ignoring the menu the old white-haired waiter sets down: sweet corn chicken soup, mixed fried rice, and chilly chicken.With gravy or without, asks the waiter. Jay frowns, trying to figure out what he means, then he realizes he's referring to the chilly chicken. With, he says. The waiter shambles away slowly, limping a little. Instead of going to the kitchen to place the order, he brings back an enormous steel jug which Jay worries he's going to drop any minute, and proceeds to fill his glass.
His hands shake and he spills a little water on the table, but Jay doesn't say anything. After the waiter goes away, he takes out the receipt for the burial and stares at it. Rs 167. He keeps thinking he's forgotten something. Some trivial but necessary detail. But he can't think of a thing. Did he tip the grave-diggers? Of course. The funeral attendant?
So what else is there? The restaurant manager or owner, a short man with thin strands of hair sticking to a shiny round scalp, puts on the stereo system too loud. The Police's Every breath you take pounds out, then the manager or owner adjusts the volume. He grins across the desk at Jay. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Jay nods, blinking with fatigue.
The meal revives him and makes him drowsy. Coming out of the dark restaurant into the afternoon sunlight, the glare hurts his eyes.
He flags down an auto, starts to tell him to go to his rental flat, then remembers. He now has a flat of his own. His mother's flat.
The liftman watches him suspiciously as he searches in his pocket for the key. ‘ Wahan koi nahi reta, sahib,' he says. Jay waves him away wearily. He finds the key and holds it up for the man to see. The liftman opens the grille doors of the lift and steps out. ‘ Aap unke bete hain, sahib?' Jay sighs, nods. The liftman says that if he is the son of the woman who used to stay here, he is to see Mr Lobo at once. Jay nods and says he 'll see him later. The liftman watches him unlock the padlock and go in.
The flat is filthy. Dozens—no, hundreds—of empty country liquor bottles lie strewn about the living room and kitchen. Cockroaches crawl boldly about in the day. Food rots in aluminium dishes in the kitchen. After a moment's hesitation, Jay goes into his mother's bedroom.
The large amoebic rust-coloured stain on the floor dominates the room. He can see where it must have dribbled out of her mouth, trickling down the side of the bed, forming a large puddle around the bed, touching the foot of the cupboard. He rubs his hand across his mouth until his lips feel raw, scraped. He looks into the cupboard.
Paper crackles as he rummages through the clothes. He lifts the stacks of worn nightdresses and sarees which she never wore for years, and finds the money. He counts it. Two thousand rupees. He frowns. How did she get that much? Of course, he had been giving her extra, but still. Then he sees a plastic bag, folded and kept at the back of a shelf. He opens it and finds a large paper packet inside.
Inside the packet he finds several bundles of hundred-rupee notes.
He counts the stacks quickly. There is over ninety thousand rupees here. He stares at the money.
The doorbell rings. He bundles up the cash in the plastic bag, shoves it back into the cupboard, locks the cupboard and goes to open the door.
‘Mr Lobo? Oh, I just got your message. I was just going to—’
‘How are you, son?’
‘I’m fine, thank you.We just had the funeral. At St. Andrew’s.’
Lobo nods. He makes a religious gesture. ‘Bless her soul.’ He looks sympathetically at Jay. ‘Perhaps it was better, yes? She was suffering a lot, no?’
Jay nods silently. ‘Would you like to—’ he indicates the living room. Lobo nods and enters. Jay follows him in, pausing to switch on the fan. Lobo looks around at the mess in the room; he and Jay exchange looks. ‘Yes, I know. I have to get it cleaned up. I just got back from the funeral just five minutes ago.’ Lobo holds up his hand. ‘Don’t worry, son. I have something important to discuss with you.’
He sits down on the wooden chair, the only safe seat in the room.
Jay leans on the edge of the table. His underwear feels damp and itchy. He longs to take them off, have a shower, change. But he has no clothes here. Lobo looks up at him. ‘Your mother sold me this flat the week before last.’
Jay comes awake, stares at him. ‘What? I beg your pardon?’
‘ We finalized the whole deal. The secretary, Mr Luthria—you know him? —he was present as a witness. I paid your mother one lakh in cash and one lakh in cheque as an advance as she had requested. The balance was to be paid on the day she vacated. But then, I didn’t know she had jaundice. I thought she was just a little sickly. She was always sickly.’
‘She sold you the flat?’
‘Oh yes. It’s all on paper. I can show you the documents. The agreement.’
Jay sits down on the corner of the sofa, his knee bumping the little table which still carries his mother’s old glass ashtray. It is still full of her cigarette butts. He swallows. He thinks of the ninety-two thousand rupees he found in his mother’s cupboard. ‘You finalized the deal?’
‘Yes.’
For how much? If you don’t mind my asking?’ Lobo smiles. ‘You have to ask, my son. It’s your flat now. Luthria tells me your mother nominated you before she died, so the flat automatically passes to you. I will be giving you the remaining amount.’
‘I see. And how much is that?’
‘We agreed to a price of forty lakhs. I wanted to pay sixty per cent cash, forty per cent cheque, but your mother wanted it the other way around, you understand, sixty cheque and—’
'—and forty cash, yes, she preferred white money. She earned only white money all her life.’
‘Possibly. So finally, we compromised on fifty—fifty.’
‘I see.’ Actually Jay doesn’t see at all. He feels outraged that this little over-humble man should be sitting here on his mother’s chair and talking to him about a flat which represents a lifetime of sweat and toil for his mother. Now that she’s dead, it seems more than a mere flat, it has acquired the status of a temple forhim. You don ’t sell temples, do you? ‘I see. So you finalized the deal. You paid her two lakhs on account and were to pay her the balance on the day she vacated the flat? When did she say she was going to vacate?’
‘She said you were looking for a flat for her to shift to. She said you were buying two small flats with the money—one for yourself and your wife,Tulika is her name, I think? —and one for her. She said it would be latest by the 12th.’
At the mention of Tuli's name, something jumps in Jay's chest. His throat hurts. He stares at the floor. For a long moment, he doesn't speak. Then he remembers that Lobo is still here, waiting. ‘I see,’ is all he can say. ‘I see.’ His eyes begin to fill, but he manages to fight the tears back. ‘I see.’
So his mother was waiting for him. He can imagine her, sitting here in this shadowy room stinking of stale sweat and liquor and previous day’s food, giggling to herself, lolling drunkenly on the sofa, waiting for him, waiting, waiting.
‘I see,’ he
says again. He realizes he has been repeating these two words for the last few minutes. Lobo is watching him sympathetically, waiting.
After Lobo leaves, Jay locks the house and goes down. The liftman glances at his red-rimmed eyes but doesn't say anything. Down in the compound, in the little garden by the water tank, children are playing a game of sankli. Jay pauses to watch them. One little boy, much smaller than the others, has difficulty holding on to the others, and keeps getting lifted off his feet. He shouts indignantly each time, but nobody hears him in all the excitement.
He walks down the street, past the video libraries, past the mounds of earth dug up by some public utilities department. A BEST bus coming down the narrowed road honks at his back. He ignores it. The bus swerves around him, the driver slows down to yell Marathi abuses at him. Jay doesn't look up. He walks on.
The sea is a dirty grey. The sun is in the western quarter, but is a long way from sunset. Couples sit on the rocks, the girls leaning their heads on the boys’ shoulders. Jay stands on the shoulder of the road and sees the rock behind which he saw the couple copulating years ago. The sea-face seems changed. He remembers a line Meera used to use often: ‘Everything changes everything.’
He thinks of Meera.Where is she now? What is she doing? Is she happy?
He thinks of Tuli.
He buys aThums Up at the corner stall and upends the bottle, putting it down only when it is empty. The chilled gaseous cola burns his throat; it feels good. A little girl is arguing with her elder sister about who has the larger coconut, at the little coconut stall next to the cold drink stall. ‘But it's not fair,’ the little girl is saying. She has a small upturned nose, the kind that looks as if she fell on it when she was a baby.
Back at his mother's flat, he sits on the floor of her bedroom, the pile of hundred-rupee notes stacked up before him. He looks at the stain on the floor.