Narcopolis

by Jeet Thayil

  ‘Enough, stop, it’s too much. Let me see the pictures.’

  The editors had thought to include several reproductions of Xavier’s paintings. There was a gory Christ figure wrapped in thorns the size of railroad ties, the figure appearing puny and abused against a backdrop of blood splatter. There was a self-portrait. And there were two pitiless nudes, soft white bodies spreadeagled on stainless steel, dead skin puckered in the harsh fluorescent light. Dimple was silent as she looked at the pictures. Then she handed the magazine back, squinting at me as if she couldn’t see. She said, He’s too angry to think. He’s so angry he’s homicidal. He wants to make everything ugly. He wants to kill the world. She said, How can you trust a man like that? How can you agree with him when he says that people are sick and deserve to die?

  *

  After a while, she asked if I would read something else and she reached under her pallet and produced a textbook wrapped with brown paper in the schoolboy way, The New Combined Textbook for Non-Christians: History & Moral Science Examination Syllabus. Under the title was the author’s name: S. T. Pande, Professor of History, University of Baroda. She held the book out to me and turned to a page she’d marked and I read a few lines.

  ‘“The founder of Christianity was the eponymous Christ, Jesus, whose personality, manic and magnetic in equal proportions, served a radical agenda that sought to overthrow the world’s hierarchical social orders. His radicalism, which manifested itself most prominently in the guise of mystic uttering, can best be encapsulated by the following indirect quote: ‘Be not content with this state of things.’ He was possessed of a sharp tongue that aimed its barbs at priests, the rich, politicians, usurers, Jews, Gentiles, foes and friends. Some say his special gift was indiscriminate truth telling. Others say it was his curse. He was born of Mary, virgin wife and mother, who was blessed with a lovely pear-shaped face and whose devotees address her in the following manner: Hail Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen!

  ‘“Jesus was, among other things, an unlicensed medical practitioner who could cure the sick with nothing more than a single touch of his right index finger. Whether this ability was of divine provenance or simply a matter of being adept in the use of herbs and plants is open to conjecture. What cannot be disputed is the miraculous effect he had on the sick and the dying. This is why diseased people became Christians, and the poor too; in other words, the lowest of the low converted to Christianity because they found in it a balm to counteract the caste-ridden ways of the world.”’

  Was this Professor Pande’s style, I wondered, to write as if he’d spent days and nights with Jesus and Mary, taking notes, accumulating the privileged information he was now sharing with us, his lucky readers? I told Dimple that the Professor, if that is what he was, seemed to me an unreliable source, though he was entertaining enough. I said there was nothing wrong with being unreliable. Who wasn’t? What, in any case, was the point in being reliable, like a dog or automobile or armchair? I said it was fine with me, as long as he didn’t call himself a historian and moral scientist. Dimple wasn’t interested. She was a story addict, the kind of reader – if she had been able to read – who hated to get to the end of a book. So I held Professor Pande’s book open on my chest and I continued.

  ‘“Jesus was crucified in a very cruel way, but he died smilingly. His happy face had a great effect on his disciples and so did the miracles he performed. In fact, he was a consummate performer: no matter what the circumstances he managed several performances a week. He once fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish only.”’

  Dimple said, ‘Five loaves of bread and two fish, which means with half a dozen fish he could have fed all the poor of Bombay, no, no, of course not, just the poor of Shuklaji Street. Even so, he should have been born in India.’

  *

  She went to the window and spat into the street. There were burns on her fingers and her toenails were painted black. She had a moon-shaped bruise on her collarbone and she pulled her shirt tight to cover it. She stood at the window for a moment, looking at the street, and for the rest of her life she remembered the way the dust from the handcarts boiled up into the sunshine and the way she lived then, the brothel with the red number on its door, 007, and the bathroom she shared with the other randis, the peanut-shaped hole in the floor they pissed in, all of them, customers included. She remembered the women she worked with, the new and not so new women from all kinds of cities and towns, from Secunderabad and Patna and Calcutta and Kathmandu, sent to Bombay to earn money for their families back home, money the families never saw because the brothel-keepers neglected to send it. And Dimple would remember that it was around this time that she determined to make her own future, around the time she started to read, her head on a pallet, or cross-legged and hunched, laboriously deciphering letters until she fell into a nod. When she woke she knew that her stay at the brothel was coming to an end and soon she would be gone, that she had to sustain her determination and it would come true, the future, if only she persisted, and she knew that whatever happened, whatever she accomplished or did not, it would be in testimony to the brothel.

  *

  Was it that afternoon or some other that she pulled out a copy of Sex Detective, the true-crime magazine that Bengali was addicted to? She flipped pages until she found a story in photographs, Womanizer Hubby Gets Comeuppance. In the first panel, a man in a flowered shirt and bell-bottoms offered a sunflower to a bosomy woman. The text was enclosed in comic-book balloons. Dimple pointed to the parts she wanted me to read.

  ‘“You are very clever. You are offering me one flower and in exchange you want the flower of my youth.” Their hot breathing is merged. Eyes tell eyes how intense is the thirst. Prakash and Priya move together to drink the juice of love. “Prakash, your titillating touch is exciting the flower, please touch the virginity of the petals with the drops of your manly vigour.” Prakash with his fingers touches the lip of Priya and awakens her body.’

  I read the passage with some involuntary inflexion, a dismissive undertone or jokiness, and she asked me why I was laughing.

  ‘Why are you so serious? It’s a story, someone made it up.’

  ‘Stories are real. Can’t you see that these people are heading for disaster? Give me back the book.’

  ‘It’s not a book.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘And this is not a pipe.’

  ‘Enough. You’re dreaming with your eyes open.’

  *

  Dimple may have picked up the idea from the tai, or from one of the randis at the brothel, but Dimple, being Dimple, developed it into a kind of classroom lesson, a mini lecture. She told me she had something to say, something I shouldn’t take personally. She said she was telling me these things because of the questions I asked, and because her own thoughts were only now taking shape in her mind. She said that men, whatever their sexual preferences, had more in common with other men than with women. It was possible they had more in common with males of other species, with chimpanzees, goats and dogs, particularly dogs, as she’d explained to me before, than with women. This was not a harsh thing to say, she continued, and especially not to a man. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it true that men aren’t interested in tenderness as much as orgasm? Isn’t it true that the main goal of the sexual act, for a man, is the discharging of semen into a suitable receptacle, or even an unsuitable one if nothing else is available? I don’t mean to be cynical, but the truth is that the gap between men and women is unbridgeable and it extends to everything, from the taking of pleasure to the meaning of marriage. Genuine union is impossible; all we can hope for is cohabitation. I said nothing in reply. What surprised me about the speech was not its content. She spoke in English, unbroken English, and I wondered how she’d gotten so good at it.

  *

  Later, when the nod took me, I dreamed I was walking through the corridors of a house from which the electricity had long been disconnected. I f
ollowed the sound of water along unlit corridors to a dead end, and beyond that to a room. It took a moment to recognize the shape waiting on the bed. Old friend, I said, tell me the story of your death, and please, you have to make an effort, it’s the only way we can speak to each other. Dimple smiled politely. She said, What? I can’t understand you. I said: I said, make an effort, an effort. As you wish, she said, this is your house, but why don’t you open the windows? You shouldn’t use electric light on a full moon. Light a candle, instead, and open the windows. Outside on the street, only one street lamp was working. A dog with a broken leg limped into the light. The street seemed to be moving and I realized it was under water. I heard the water lap against the building and I smelled the chemicals that floated on its surface. Dimple said, Be grateful, so many people don’t have even this. Then she said, I died in December at three o’clock in the afternoon. People were walking on the promenade. A child asked, Is this the sea or the ocean? and her mother replied, Just drink your coco water, shut up for one second. The memorial benches were empty except for the crows. A couple stood gazing out to sea and I noticed that the woman was pregnant and it seemed to me that they were dead, like everybody on the promenade, but of all the dead people who were out walking, I was deadest and I was covered in blood, my own or some other’s, I couldn’t tell. The sea lay among the dirty mangroves and I imagined I was the tide that pooled among the rocks near Bandstand, a dirty blood-ringed tide that ebbed and was gone. Do you want to know what happened next? I died and my spirit hung upside down in a cave of creatures yearning to be born, hung upside down for many years or hours. A sign had been painted on the wall long ago, Pit Loka it said, and though the letters were faded, a group of us hovered near it, as if the proximity of the words would ensure our return to the land of the living. But I can’t return, except like this, partially.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been here all this time. What have I been doing? I don’t know. People tell me things, secret things. They’re kind to me because they like me and they tell me what to expect.’

  ‘What do they tell you?’

  ‘The same thing I will tell you, that we’re here, close to you, invisible, of course, but we are here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ve never met anyone who asks so many questions,’ said Dimple, and she looked up at the window and smiled. ‘On the other side of the mirror, our hands are resting against the glass, trying to touch your face. Only a veil separates us from you, a transparent veil as flimsy as the one that separates you from your dreams. If you want to talk to us you only have to dip your hand beneath the surface of the water. We’re waiting for a glance or a word, some acknowledgement that we are here. If you dip your hand you’ll hear us. You should listen. Even if you can’t bear it, you should listen.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rumi on Pimps

  I overheard a conversation, or more than that, an altercation, between a pimp and a tall man with a caste mark on his forehead. The tall man was wearing cowboy boots that he refused to leave at the door. I didn’t hear what the pimp said but the other man’s voice was difficult to ignore. He told the pimp that the laws of supply and demand applied everywhere, including the cesspools of the fucking Third World. You’re being childish, he said. You shouldn’t take it personally if your whores are unpopular. Ask yourself how you can remedy the situation. Could be all you need is a USP. Regular medical check-ups, that’s the answer, friend. Test result posted on the wall for all to see, but only if it’s negative. The pimp was a pockmarked giant with teeth that were too big for his lips. His mouth was open, as if he was panting, but he kept his voice even. He said, Did you call me childish? He used the same high-Hindi word the other man had used, ‘bachpana’. He could have reached over and broken his opponent in two without raising a sweat. The thing that stopped him was the expression on the other man’s face, which was serene, as if he had a gun under his shirt or at the very least a knife.

  ‘Just stoned talk,’ the man said when the dog-faced pimp had left. He was wearing a pair of headphones around his neck and I could hear strange music pumping into the air. ‘I said something, he got upset and then he calmed the fuck down. You want to know something?’

  He dropped his voice slightly, which only served as a signal to the men around us. He said: The thing to remember is one small but supremely important fact: pimps are cowards. Pimps are worthless. Pimps make their money from the weak and the diseased, from men and women whose will has deserted them, who will never fight or put up any kind of resistance, who want to die. Once you know this, that a pimp is a cowardly little fuck, there’s no problem; you can stand up to them like a man. You’ve got to face facts and the fact is life is a joke, a fucking bad joke, or, no, a bad fucking joke. There’s no point taking it seriously because whatever happens, and I mean whatever the fuck, the punch line is the same: you go out horizontally. You see the point? No fucking point.

  I thought: He’s trying to impress me. I thought: Chandulis are slaves to the pipe, which diminishes us in the world, and we make up the difference with boasts and lies.

  Then the tall man sat up and yelled across the room at Bengali. He said, ‘Can I get a pyali, boss, today sometime? I’ve been here half an hour and I’m tired of waiting.’ Someone coughed and the room became still. Bengali, very reluctantly, it seemed to me, put a pyali on Dimple’s tray.

  ‘I don’t think they like you very much here,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, fuck that, I wouldn’t come to a place like this without protection.’ He looked meaningfully at his briefcase. ‘So, where you from originally?’

  ‘Kerala, South India.’

  ‘Undu Gundu Land, I know where it is. You get any trouble?’

  ‘If I make the mistake of speaking Malayalam to the locals, yes.’

  ‘Locals? Like me, you mean? Well, not to worry, things are changing: you Southies will be okay. We’re going after bigger game.’ He dropped his voice and said, ‘Mozzies.’

  ‘Is that the new strategy, guaranteed to win friends and generate income?’

  He propped himself on an elbow to get a better look at me. ‘Chief? You should watch your mouth. Maybe you’ve got a bellyful of opium and you don’t care. Or you want to go off and you’re looking for an easy way. Or maybe your head is full of bugs, like me.’ He was smiling, a wide patronizing smile, and when he held out his hand, his grip was firm and moist. ‘Anyway, name’s Rumi. And you?’

  ‘Dom.’

  ‘With a name like that, you’re fucked. All you have in common with these people is smoke.’

  I said, ‘What’s the music you’re listening to?’

  *

  He handed me the headphones. The sound was high-pitched, like the soundtrack of a movie in which random scenes had been strung together, or cut up and played backwards, or deliberately placed out of order. Bottles clinked and a door creaked open. A shot rang out. A child whispered, Is he here? Where is he? A woman wept and said, Nahi, nahi. There was the sound of water falling from a great height. A door creaked shut and a bottle smashed on a tiled floor. A woman’s high voice fell deeply through the octaves and a shot rang out. A man panted like a dog. A child wept and water lapped against the side of a boat or a body. A bottle of champagne popped and a doorbell rang. James Bond guitars played against cowboy string orchestration. The child said, Here he is. Where is here? The woman’s voice, soaked in reverb and whisky, executed another perfect fall and I experienced a sudden drop in my head like a vertigo rush. I heard the sound of water and Dimple handed me the pipe. I put it against my lips and heard a man shout, Monica, my darling, and I felt so dizzy that I had to close my eyes. Then a woman said, Is he here? and a child whispered, Nahi, and a shot rang out and everything went silent. I took the headphones off and gave them back to Rumi.

  He said, ‘Bombay blues.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Painter Visits

  I saw in the Free Press Journal that Newton Xavier was
to make an appearance in the city. He would read poems and answer questions about his new Bombay show, the first in a dozen years, opening that week at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Kala Ghoda. I was excited at the chance to see him up close. I wanted to see what he looked like. I remembered the work I’d seen and the articles I’d read, which described him in lurid phrases that sounded like terms of endearment. Most writers agreed that he was an enfant terrible and brilliant; a postmodern subversive who rejected the label ‘postmodern’; a drunk whose epic binges were likened to those of illustrious alcoholic predecessors such as Dylan Thomas, Verlaine and J. Swaminathan, though he had lately sworn off the booze after a violent blackout that landed him in hospital; a wild child now in early middle age who ‘outdid the Romantics’ antics, at least in terms of tenderness and rage’, this according to the London Review of Books. The Daily Mail put it in plainer terms: he was ‘permanently drunk on booze, broads and beauty’ and he was ‘art-obsessed, self-absorbed’ and ‘mad, bad and slanderous to know’. He was worldly, acerbic, photogenic, precocious, and he wrote poetry. The TLS said his two collections of poetry, reissued under the title Songs for the Tin-Eared, were more chaotic than his paintings, though they explored the same themes, i.e. the world as a manifestation of the estranged mind, and the three major religions – Islam, Hinduism, Christianity – as evidence of estrangement. I pored over the reproductions of the paintings that I found in the magazines, especially the Hindu Christ series. These are the paintings he will be remembered for, I thought, the pictures of Christ with blue skin, with doe eyes, kaajal and a caste mark. Christ playing the flute or stealing the clothes of bathing village nymphets or meditating in a cave: strange portraits in vivid Indian reds and yellows.