The Storyteller

by Adib Khan

  Voices. Hands. A sensation of floating. Flying words flapping their clumsy wings. Injustice. Dignity. Wrong. Redress…Words without meaning. Of little practical use to those who struggled in a dented world where feral instincts and bodily functions were the only measurements of life. Hunger. Cold. Heat blisters. Constant pain. Runny shit. Rock hard dong and the desperate loneliness of masturbation. Oh yes! What I could not explain with any conviction to myself. The retreat inside and the tremors of creation.

  Aaargh! It felt as if my back had been touched by a slab of ice. The light…trickles of colour breathed softly. Above me, wooden beams suspended in the air. The abandoned foundations of heaven. A grand design that could never reach fruition. The angels had departed.

  ‘Drink…’

  My head was raised. Iced water. At last! The sun had been drained of its anger. A young maiden resurrected me with the song of the pomegranate tree. I heard the river flowing through the forest of the wild horses. I should have followed its meandering course through the valley. A journey of redemption to the land of the never-fading rainbow. Under the arched colours, my emergence from the husk. The birth of an adult. Tall and resplendent.

  The figure in white hovered over me.

  ‘God?’ I whispered.

  ‘You are in his house.’

  Father Daniel—fat, black and smiling—washed the cuts and dabbed them with cotton wool. No questions. His life was full of silent conjectures. A restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘Rest. No one will hurt you here.’

  Was he prone to lying as convincingly as I? Impossible! I had to be the best at something.

  My head rested against the coolness of the slate tiles. He covered the cuts with an ointment. He asked me if I could sit up. It wasn’t easy. Gradually the world stopped rotating. My eyes wandered over the rows of high-backed benches to the richly decorated platform at the front. The tranquillity inside the hall was unfamiliar to me. The cleanliness, the symmetry, the order…A holy emptiness. Somewhere a car honked. The sound comforted me.

  The size of the timber cross held my attention. Father Daniel noticed my stare.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’

  ‘Jesu. He told stories.’

  ‘He gave up his life to save mankind.’ I blinked incomprehensibly. ‘From eter…eternal damnation!’ Father Daniel spluttered, offended by the ignorance implicit in my silence.

  ‘He didn’t do a very good job,’ I murmured.

  ‘What was that?’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a maidservant enter through a side door with a thal in her hands. I nodded to indicate my belated acceptance of what Father Daniel had said about Jesu. The problem was that I was undecided whether I was part of mankind. I chose not to express my doubt.

  ‘Do you know anything about Jesus Christ?’ He motioned the girl to come forward.

  I said I had read about Jesu. Seen pictures. A gaunt, dejected figure. Sad eyes. It appeared as if he knew what was wrong with the world.

  ‘You can read?’ He made no effort to hide the doubt in his voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And have you read the greatest story that’s ever been told?’ Expectantly he leaned towards me. The glint in his eyes made me wary.

  ‘I know the story of Mahabharata. I also know—’

  ‘People are not allowed to eat in here.’ A coldness had crept into his voice. ‘You have to get up. Over there. Outside. Outside!’

  He followed me as I limped into the glare of the afternoon’s heat. I ate greedily with both hands, stuffing rice and dhal in my mouth. Currents of vitality surged through me. I banished Constable Ram Lal and the two other policemen into the remoteness of a spatial darkness to pummel the emptiness with their fists. Heh! Heh! Heh! Despite the soreness and the pain, I was keen to leave the girja and Father Daniel.

  He asked me if I had ever seriously thought about Jesus. I mumbled that I hadn’t. The dhal needed more salt.

  ‘Would you like to bring him into your life? Enrich yourself with the certainty that your soul can be saved.’

  What was my soul? I wanted to ask. A lost life floating inside…Was it supposed to be the real self, and my external appearance merely its distorted reflection? I thought about the figure on the cross. Its sadness disturbed me. There wasn’t much hope in his face. The loll of the head…the spread of the arms. The entire posture was one of resigned acceptance rather than triumph. An acknowledgement that the problems of mortality were beyond resolution. A gesture of surrender.

  Father Daniel followed me as I hobbled to a water tap on the side of the church’s outside wall.

  ‘Think about it. We can help. Regular meals. Perhaps a job. It wouldn’t pay much. More importantly, the discovery of God.’

  I drank noisily. ‘I would rather discover a woman in my life. That would enrich me.’

  He stiffened and glowered at me with unforgiving eyes. I realised that a lie would have been more acceptable.

  ‘Do you pray?’

  Ay yah! Unpleasant memories again. Maji’s tearful attempts. Her husband’s outraged objections stemming from his belief that I wasn’t born of Brahmin parents. Maji’s cunning prevailed. Secret visits to temples. Pujas in the house when Vijay was away. Offerings, gestures, motions and mumblings. Without conviction or commitment. Bhagwan came no closer to me. He remained as a mutable shadow that I refused to embrace.

  ‘Not any more,’ I replied, scraping up the bits of rice and dhal stuck to the sides of the thal.

  ‘In moments of distress, in times of loneliness and stumbling in darkness, prayers help.’

  If what he said were true, then I would have to pray all the time. I licked my fingers in anticipation that he would offer me another serving.

  ‘Prayers bring comfort. Peace to the mind and heart. Light to the soul. It is reassuring to know that someone is listening. Someone cares.’

  Listening…listening. Hello? Ah, Vamana! I am busy at the moment. Call me another time.

  The shimmer of belief. Not a flicker of doubt haunted his face. A clear, flat landscape untouched by silhouettes. No twists or turns. Without murky corners or the tortured voices of unseen shapes. He knew nothing about the awesome dimensions of darkness within.

  My lack of response concerned him. Father Daniel watched me with furrowed eyebrows. He refused to notice the empty thal I held in front of my stomach. I washed my hands under the tap.

  Yours is an alien world, padre. I am unable to walk on firm surfaces.

  He hovered behind me, his silence betraying his intention to reach my elusive soul.

  It was painful, but I managed to sling the strap of the satchel around my neck. Wig and cap in place, I shuffled away.

  ‘If you feel like meeting Christ, come in any time…’

  I did not look back. Something should have been said. Words crumbled and discouraged me from turning. The kindness of a stranger was a potent force of confusion.

  Thank you…but I am not used to people like you, padre.

  I kept thinking about those outstretched arms. Perhaps they were intended to embrace those who emerged from a defective mould. I wished I had been able to read his eyes.

  6

  A debilitating experience

  I was ignored until one of barey bhai’s thugs arrived to announce that there had been no sign of the police. ‘There is no danger. Vamana did not betray us.’

  Barey Bhai nodded his head in approval. Chaman smiled. The others clapped and cheered. I did not speak. Sulking, I retreated to the sanctuary of my corner.

  An enraged storm had engulfed the city. Spitting and clawing. A desperate measure of Nature to wash the city clean of its daily accumulation of misery. Dusk. No appeasement. Whirlwinds of thought drifted into the evening. Darkness was a passage of escape for the mind. The noise of the rain was an ancient sound. As the others retired I drifted off…

  What landscape was this? A sheet of water with boats gliding like peaceful souls graced with celestial bliss. Motionless palm trees. Sheph
erds and soldiers. Camels. Mules. Unfamiliar sights and sounds unknown. With whose eyes did I see? In the marketplace no one heard the future bleating its words of warning. Hell would ultimately be located on earth.

  This was a storyteller’s paradise. They believed him readily. What were lies but the truths of tomorrow? Banished angels—blackened and deformed. Demons danced in the flames that leapt from dark crevices. Acts that defied reason. Copulation. Conception. Birth. The immutable links of time.

  He stepped forward with loaves of bread. I know you from the future. I, too, am a storyteller.

  Instant recognition. I was flattered. There are stories about your stories. No one has said anything about my tales.

  You are very bold.

  Where will the truth be?

  In what is believed. It’s the sincerity of conviction that matters.

  Are you God?

  Are you?

  No!

  You are very sure about that. Are you a creator?

  Of a kind…

  Chaman’s coughing. An untimely interruption. But she couldn’t have known that I was busy. The rain had stopped. I listened intently. Clouds rumbled a warning that they hadn’t finished yet.

  I banged a fist on the mattress. I had lost him. Father Daniel—he could tell me more. I peeped through the hole in the wall. The momentary sighting of a jagged cross in the silky darkness. But no Jesu. Perhaps I had seen more than there was? I resolved to return to the church.

  Chaman sounded forlorn as she whispered my name. I thought of a mother calling for a lost child. She sat on the edge of the mattress and stroked the top of my head. I lay on my back, silently pleading for the hurt to disappear. It had been unusual for even Maji to touch me. A quick pat on the back, or an arm around my shoulders, was the extent of the physical contact I enjoyed with her.

  ‘They hurt you badly,’ Chaman said softly.

  I reached out and clasped her arm. There was a dryness in my mouth. I thought about the parched earth and the twirling sand.

  ‘No.’ A defiant lie. Ram Lal had said that I was stubborn and foolish.

  ‘We didn’t think the police would be there in the morning.’ She ran her fingers through my hair.

  You disappeared without even a backward glance.

  She lay down next to me. I edged closer until my head touched her bosom. Her breasts were like pulped fruit. In the silence there was consolation, regret, anger…an awareness of helplessness and the craving for company. I sought asylum in a fragile shelter. The excitement of a female’s nearness was snuffed by the calmness of belonging. I clung to her as though she were my mother. In the darkness there wasn’t a need to hide my vulnerability. Her hands soothed my body. She hummed a tune. The melody of a broken landscape.

  A fit of coughing racked her body. I didn’t ask if she was unwell. The rain tumbled again.

  Morning. The yawn of another vacant day. Chaman? I sniffed the mattress. Stale sweat. Rotting coir. Piss. Nothing distinctive to suggest her presence. Not a single strand of hair. Nocturnal illusions. I shrugged them off with habitual indifference. Flies buzzed in a corner. The offensive odour suggested more than dead insects.

  Memory clanged its shutters and threw me outside. Lightning Fingers was exercising—crouching, moving deftly sideways, sprinting, running backwards, flexing his fingers, somersaulting. He panted a greeting and then smiled as he caught me staring at him. ‘You must be prepared for a quick getaway. Unfortunate, what happened to you.’

  ‘No one even tried to help!’

  ‘Help? If you refuse to see with our eyes and choose to act in your own way, then you will have to take care of yourself. Would a beating for all of us be any better than only you being thrashed? If they were certain that we worked together, that we were pickpockets…’ He slid an index finger across his throat.

  I was unable to argue the point. I had been warned. To be snared by the police was indicative of serious negligence, a major flaw in the plan of escape. The consequences had to be silently endured by the individual offender.

  ‘What we did yesterday was exciting. We must try again next week. Somewhere different. This time I will pause to listen to you.’ He cartwheeled towards a pile of empty tea chests. ‘You are to go and see Baji. Immediately.’ He began his acrobatics again, as if I were of no further interest to him.

  ‘Chaman?’ I was disappointed by her absence. I tried to dismiss the previous night as no more than a wispy dream.

  He stood on his hands, obviously surprised by my query. ‘Stealing, fucking, lying, selling drugs. Anything that brings money.’

  There was no malice or condemnation in his voice. Stealing. Lying. Drugs. The defining perimeters of our lives. As for fucking—well, I was still ruefully contemplating my efforts of the previous week. I knew about the prostitutes who shared a shack on the edge of a dirt track fringed with piles of rubbish. It was a miserable place. Pye-dogs, goats, rats and feral cats prospered there. It was the playground of naked children who entertained themselves by pawing through the stinking mounds of refuse. There was an uneasy truce among the whores in our community. Business was brisk, and there was no cause for friction. Still, Chaman spoke disparagingly about them and avoided their company.

  On an unbearably hot afternoon, I spied on the women. Outside the entrance of their dwelling, the three of them—Shanti, Padma and Alya—squatted on their haunches, smoking cigarettes and gossiping. Their conversation was loud and interspersed with lewd jokes about men. The laughter was uncontrollably raucous. I eyed them apprehensively, intimidated by their lack of restraint. Curiosity and desire subsided, and I almost slunk away. Then Sujata came out. She was small, not pretty, but there was an endearing fragility about her looks…and I was fooled. They ceased talking as I appeared and stared at me.

  ‘How much?’ I blurted out, my eyes on Sujata.

  ‘How much what?’

  ‘How much do you charge for…for an hour of…er…your services?’

  ‘Different rates. Depends if it’s day or night.’ Padma looked at me coyly and ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. ‘And on what we are expected to do.’

  They leaned towards each other and whispered.

  ‘Who are you pimping for?’

  ‘It’s…it’s for me.’ I gulped, feeling the sweat on my face.

  ‘For you?’ Sujata pointed an index finger at me and looked incredulously at the others.

  ‘For him?’ Shanti echoed.

  There was an uneasy pause, and then a deafening cacophony of laughter. They slapped their thighs and clapped their hands.

  ‘You can have him, Alya! All of him can disappear inside you!’

  Alya tilted back on her elbows and spread her legs. ‘I can take in the entire Indian army,’ she boasted, shaking her legs and moaning.

  ‘What a man!’ Padma mocked. ‘There will be no charge for you, Big Head. You will give us all such plea…sure!’ She slurred the word and managed to make it sound vulgar.

  Sujata burst into a song.

  ‘Sing a sweet song

  About his runaway dong!

  Ay yah, ay yah…Ay yah, ay yah!

  Can it be,

  That love’s finally come to me?

  Sing a song,

  Strike the gong!

  Dong! Dong! Dong!’

  I was surrounded. They held hands and skipped around me, singing the words repeatedly with a malicious glee.

  ‘I can pay!’ I shouted in panic. ‘I can pay whatever you want!’

  The skipping and singing stopped immediately.

  ‘He has money!’

  They closed in on me.

  ‘Next week! Next week!’ I pleaded. ‘I can pay you next week!’

  Their hands dived, crawled and probed. Grunts of disappointment turned into expletives. Someone’s bosom squashed my face. It felt as if I had been hit with a sandbag. Fingers tugged and tickled. Not an unpleasant sensation at all. Movement. Expansion. Elevation. A squeal of astonishment.

  ‘He is not
human!’

  A gasp. ‘Let us see!’

  I was thrown violently and pinned to the ground. Bodies began to suffocate me.

  My teeth penetrated layers of clothing and punctured skin. The howl of pain set the dogs barking.

  Padma leapt up, clutching her buttocks. ‘He bit me!’ she screamed. ‘The mother-fucking bastard bit me!’

  They stepped back several paces. I sprang to my feet, bristling with indignation. My breathing was heavy. I snarled and salivated. I opened my mouth and bit the air as though invisible hunks of edibles hung in front of me. My jaws snapped noisily. I rolled my eyes, growled, snorted and gnashed my teeth. Clawed fingers slashed and tore imaginary enemies in a fierce display of aggression. A convincing performance, I thought.

  A crowd had gathered. It was a peculiarity of the bustee-dwellers, starved for entertainment, that whenever a fight broke out near the shack of the whores it caused more merriment than concern. This time they did not laugh. They watched in awed silence, unable to determine how dangerous I might be. Padma’s prolonged theatrics worked to create an aura of insanity about me.

  ‘Cannibal! Beast!’ she yelled, taking a few backward steps. ‘Lunatic! Sex-crazed maniac!’

  Vamana, the mad dwarf. He was bitten by an infected mongrel and has turned into an animal…His eyes glowed like embers from hell. His teeth…yellow and pointed, like those of a tiger. It is not unlikely that a demon fathered him.

  It wasn’t difficult to imagine another sinister dimension added to my character. People were already aware of my special relationship with the ghost of Hamilton Saheb. Whispered words blossoming into macabre tales of darkness. I would rather be implanted in the minds as a villain of substance, someone who aroused tales of fear and hatred, than live as a harmless nobody, destined to wither and disappear.

  I was on the verge of a conversation with the ghost when someone chucked a piece of rubbish at me. The spell snapped. My effectiveness was doused with ridicule. A stone whistled over my head, then more rubbish. It was the work of the whores. I ran. The four witches led the chase, shouting abuses and hurling whatever they could find. Children cheered and dogs yelped. Men and women looked on in bewilderment. Twists and turns. Under a fence and across a ditch. Cars honked. A man on a bicycle slammed into a pushcart. More abuses and angry noises.