by Cleo Odzer
"What are you doing? You must not do thusly," the teacher said as she led me to a glass of water She dunked a handkerchief and rubbed my wrist with it. The dirt smeared. "Sit," she told me. "You sit here." She continued her lesson, and a crescendo of horrible twangs surrounded me.
That was the end of that.
By late afternoon I thought I'd go off my rocker. I paced; tried in vain to sleep; paced some more. Then, surprise! A social worker came to see me. She spoke English!
"Please, please," I pleaded with her. "Get me back to Tihar. I'm twenty-nine. I don't belong here."
She looked at my wrist, where the results of my great effort had all but disappeared. "What have you done and why do you not eat?"
"Huh? Not eat? Oh, well . . ." She'd thrown me with that question. I hadn't eaten anything since I'd been brought to Nari Katin, but that hadn't fazed me. Food was the last thing on my mind. "Well, cold rice . . . I can't eat cold rice. But I don't care about food. I just want to go back to Tihar. Please, will you help me? Please, please, please?"
She shook her head yes, but I was not convinced. "If I see what I can do, will you eat?" She tapped my wrist. "And not do anything foolish?"
She left, and I was certain nothing would be done. That night two of my roommates had a fight. They punched and kicked and hurled everything that came to hand. A three-foot-tall clay jug shattered, sloshing water across the floor. Mirrors and a picture of Shiva and Parvati smashed against the wall. Handfuls of hair flew in the air.
Four supervisors plus a male sentry finally pulled them apart. Meanwhile they'd made a shambles of our room, and I had to sleep in the dormitory. Hard wooden bed beneath me; sixty breathing, snoring, coughing, crying-in-their-sleep Indian girls around me, the nearest one with her underpants around her knees, masturbating all night. And I'd wanted an adventure!
In the morning the social worker rescued me. She escorted me by jeep to the courthouse and arranged my return to Tihar. I gave her an enormous hug.
Ah, Tihar! You'd have thought I'd been granted entrance to the Garden of Eden.
"Frin! Marie-Andree!" I rushed into my friends' arms.
I had to be the happiest person on the planet. Marie-Andree gave me the opium that had arrived two minutes after I'd been taken away. The servant cooked a scrumptious dinner. I had my old room back.
I pulled the mattress to the front of my cell to sleep under the stars. As I lay watching their brightness through the striped outline of bars, I contemplated the state of affairs that had made returning to New Delhi's Tihar Jail such a blissful event. Somewhere along the line I'd lost control of my life. Not to mention my finances. How was I going to pay Lino the rent? I still owed him for last year. I seemed on the verge of losing everything, including control, caution, and good sense. Maybe it was time to leave India.
NO.
India was my home. Besides, with the monsoon nearing its end, a new Goa season awaited.
After another week Rachid bailed me out.
Since it was already September, Rachid agreed it was time for me to reopen my dope den in Goa. My court case wasn't finished yet, and the New Delhi police still had my passport, but legal things took time, and the lawyer could take care of details while I was away. I wasn't about to stay in Delhi while a new season began in Goa.
In Bombay I delighted in finding real people, my people—not the unsavoury types Rachid had working for him. In a suite at the Nataraj Hotel I found Junky Robert and Tish and their new baby. Finished with her motherly duty of giving birth, Tish was snorting dope again.
Rich once more, Robert and Tish had established a legitimate business, importing cane furniture into Florida. They passed me lines of coke while describing the condo they'd bought in Miami Beach. Robert lectured on the wonders of Singapore cane chairs, then segued into a harangue on the benefits of family life.
"I'm a father now. I have to think about her," he said, lifting a gold razor blade from the coke and aiming it at the baby.
Tish and Robert still owed me money from the scam I'd invested in two years before. I didn't have to remind them—they handed me a thousand dollars in cash, plus a generous stash of dope.
The next morning I changed dollars at a black-market exchange in Colaba, bought a flea collar for Bach from a black-market dealer in Crawford Market, and took the boat to Goa. Hallelujah, I was headed home!
Fifth Season in Goa
1979 — 1980
"BACH! BACH!" I WRAPPED my arms around the writhing bundle of fur that bounded into them "Oh, Bach. Look how big you've grown. Bach, I missed you so."
Since I'd cabled my arrival date to the maid, the house was fixed and waiting. I closed the front door and sat on the inside steps as furry animal jumped all over me. Oh, Bach, I don't ever want to leave you again. I don't ever want to leave this house again. I love this place. How am I going to pay the rent?
Lino arrived within an hour. Amazing how news can travel fast without a telephone.
"The money's on the way," I promised him. "It's been sent from New York. Should be here any day."
How could I possibly amass the two years rent I owed him? I wouldn't think about it now. As long as I had Bach and the house and the beach, everything was just wonderful. For the moment, at least.
I put on a slinky red and gold Chinese dress and dyed Bach's tail and one of his legs with red food colouring. I made his ears gold. Then, shouldering a red parasol, I headed for Joe Banana's. Cleo was back.
I stopped by Alehandro's, Sasha's, Kurt's tree, and Eight-Finger Eddy's porch. I joined the gang at the south end to watch the sunset, and then a group of us went to Gregory's restaurant for buffalo steak. Bach ate prawns in wine sauce. I was home. I loved Anjuna Beach—every grain of sand, each palm tree, and every water buffalo. It was impossible to love anything more than I loved Anjuna Beach.
The next day I visited Canadian Jacques, Norwegian Monica, and Pharaoh. Pans and Paul, together again, were renting their same house by Joe Banana's. Siena and Bernard lived in a new one behind the paddy fields. Graham had returned next door. The beach parties resumed at the south end.
Home.
But the dope den never regained its vigour. During the previous year's high season it had been a tremendous success. This year it never got off the ground. Oh, I sold a lot. But I also consumed a lot, and somehow the two couldn't keep nice. My enthusiasm for the enterprise evaporated. It required so much work. It was no longer a challenge—just a hassle. I couldn't even show the movies since they, along with the projector, were still being held hostage by the hospital, awaiting payment of Maria's bill.
I lacked stamina. I barely had the strength to go to the south end for a swim. For the first time I used the beach in back of the house. Previously I'd swam there only in a heat emergency. The south end was the place to hang out; the middle beach was for tourists who didn't know better.
Come to think of it, the south end had become less popular over the pass few years. When I'd first arrived Goa Freaks packed its shores every day. As of Tate, though, more and more people stayed away, preferring to remain indoors, around the bhong, smoking dope. There hadn't been a crowd at the south end in a long time. Whatever happened to the volleyball net, I wondered?
So now I swam at the middle beach, with its hidden jagged rocks waiting for a toe to scrape. I took Bach in the water with me. When the colour washed out of his fur, I coloured him again. I'd match him to whatever I wore that day. When I dressed in purple, Bach wagged a purple tail.
One day a catastrophe befell my area—they found a dead French Junky in the well. Nobody knew who he was. He must have stumbled into it during the night and drowned. The well was now polluted, ruined. The Goans living nearby depended entirely on that well. This was a major disaster.
It took the Goans three days to haul out the water and dredge up the bottom mud. Besides the inconvenience, to the superstitious Catholic natives a dead person in your drinking water was considered as bad an omen as you could get. They said it would be
years before the well could be used again. In the meantime we'd have to use the one on the other side of Graham's house, by the paddy field—a arduous trek when carrying a bucket of water. Now it wasn't easy to find Goans willing to fill my water tank. One flush of the toilet cost two trips to the well. I'd have to ask my customers to use the outdoor pig-as-waste-disposal toilet.
Rachid's man wouldn't deliver to my door; I had to make the long journey into Mapusa for daily drug supplies. Hassle. I worried about the customers I was losing while I was away.
Then I realized my biggest problem: The Sikh chai shop.
During the monsoon a new chai shop had opened on the other side of Graham's house. I'd noticed their building of brick and palm fronds when I'd first returned. The Sikhs served Chicken Tikka and Chicken Masala, along with dope, coke, hash, and morphine. If customers came while I was out, they didn't wait; they bought from the Sikhs instead. The price was the same and the quality not much different.
By November I was once again suffering a scarcity of capital. I bought smaller quantities from Rachid's man in Mapusa, ran out faster, returned sooner to Mapusa, and lost more customers during my absence. I urgently needed a chunk of money to buy stock, plus a chunk to pay the maid, the electric bill, the gang of people now needed to fill the water tank . . . and the rent.
Uh-oh. What do I do?
I'd have to sell some things. How barbaric. To sell one's possessions—gross. But I could think of no other solution. I'd have to hawk my belongings at the flea market. Like a peasant. There went my reputation.
It had been years since I'd gone to a flea market. When I asked Norwegian Monica what day of the week they were held, I was shocked to hear that the flea markets were no longer on Anjuna Beach.
"What do you mean they're not here any more? The flea market used to be a major event."
"Not anymore," Monica answered. "Hoo, boy—the Anjuna people don't have the same energy."
What was happening to my beach? We used to be the centre of all goings-on.
The flea markets were now in Calangute every Friday afternoon and were mostly frequented by Goans, not Goa Freaks. Calangute! What a pain. That meant I'd have to hire a motorbike and schlepp my stuff. One of my customers—a straightish newcomer to Goa—said he was going to the next market: and suggested we make the trip together.
"Okay, I guess so," I answered dejectedly.
I hated the idea. Even in my poorest days of travelling in Europe, I'd never sold anything at a flea market. I hadn't even sold my car when I left Amsterdam for Israel. Instead, I gave the car away and arrived in Tel Aviv on a one-way ticket with twenty-five dollars to my name. To me, selling personal possessions was an admission of financial failure, a real down and-out statement. Was this what I'd come to?
How awful choosing what to part with. I decided I could live without the iron, a leather backgammon board, a few tapes I was sick of listening to . . . Depressing.
Early Friday morning a motorcycle driver came for me. Straightish Newcomer arrived too, the back of his bike piled with things to sell. A flat area in Calangute near a school served as the flea market. Whatever vegetation once grew there had been trampled into the red dirt. Straightish found us a spot by a tree, and we spread cloths to lay our wares on. I'd brought a hammer and nails so I could hang signs advertising my goods and their prices. The tree could serve as a backrest and ad board.
I never got the opportunity to write signs, though. Within minutes of arriving, I discovered what selling at a flea market entailed. As I took the backgammon board out of my bag, a middle-aged Goan grabbed it.
"Oh, wait—I'm not ready yet," I said. "Would you mind coming back in a few minutes?" Either she didn't understand or she pretended not to. She proceeded to open the board and raised her eyebrows in surprise as she saw the unfamiliar numbers on the betting cube, which she probably mistook for a the. Chips tumbled to the ground. "Oh, wait! You dropped my . . ."
Before I knew it, three more Indians flocked over. I snatched the chips from under their Feet and continued unpacking. I pulled out a Nepalese dancing mask; someone grappled it from my hand. The Indians watched hungrily as I reached in for more. An old man tugged at the bag's flap for a view inside.
"Uh, would you all mina coming back in five minutes, please?" I said. "Let me set up first." The man inserted his arm in the bag. "Wait a minute! Not ready vet. Five minutes. Wait five minutes."
Nobody listened. A woman bent to examine the iron. Three men rummaged through my tapes.
"How much this?" one of them asked.
"What this?" asked another.
"I give ten rupee for two?" said a third.
"Those are ten rupees each. But, please, if you give me a minute write the prices." They didn't give me a minute. I hadn't taken out half my stock before the Indians swamped me, wanting to know what everything was and how much it cost.
"WAIT A MINUTE! Will you wait a minute!" Indians had surrounded me, and when I managed to peer past two of them, couldn't see Straightish, for there was another mob around him. "WATT!" I yelled. "Stand back a bit. I'm suffocating here. Look, you're standing on my cloth! Back. Back. Move back." I waved my arms. They ignored me.
"What this?" three people asked at the same time, holding different objects under my nose.
"How much? Do rupea, okay?"
From beneath my skirt I retrieved the wallet tied around my waist. I opened a paper package of coke and snorted a couple of fingernails full.
"What this?" said a Goan woman, probing a Thai box in the shape of a turtle. The top fell off and someone stepped on it. I did three more nails-full.
"What this?" I did one more.
"ALRIGHT!" I shouted. "NOW WAIT! I'm going to write price tags, see, and they're going to say exactly what everything is and how much it costs."
"I give five rupee for this."
"No! No bargaining. Now everybody stand back and let me finish. And you, GET YOUR FOOT OFF MY CLOTH! CELLO! CELLO!"
They allowed me a foot of space when I yelled, but within seconds they had closed in again. I snorted more coke and refused to answer anyone. I jotted prices. Tapes, ten rupees each. Blender, three hundred rupees. Iron—
"What this?"
"How much?"
I glared ferociously. "READ THE TAG!"
More coke.
As soon as I finished the price tags I realized they wouldn't work. I had no adhesive tape for affixing them. No one bothered to read them, and whatever the Goans picked up to examine they put down in another spot, far from its informative tag. Soon I had a collection of little tags that weren't near anything. Someone placed the four hundred rupee iron near a five rupee tag.
"Five rupee this?"
"NO," I shouted, my fists clenched and fury in my voice. "FIVE RUPEE THAT!" I plunked the rightful object near its price tag.
More coke.
Nobody bought anything. Apparently Indians enjoyed investigating foreign things. They hadn't the least desire for actual purchase. They crowded around, exploring, touching, opening, discarding, and asking questions.
The piecework pillow I'd brought from Laos appeared half an inch from my chin. "How much this?"
"READ THE TAG!"
Things worsened as the afternoon progressed, and in exasperation, aggravation, and Coke Amuck rage, I lost the ability to talk in a normal tone of voice.
TEN RUPEES, YOU MORON! What this? GET YOUR FOOT OFF MY CLOTH! I give you three rupees. NO BARGAINING! You from America? What this? GET BACK! What this? (more coke) GET OFF THE CLOTH! How much? STAND BACK! (more coke) What this? TEN RUPEES! TEN RUPEES! CAN’T YOU READ? How much? (more coke) WHERE’S THE PILLOW? What this? DID YOU PAY FOR THAT? (more coke) WI TO TOOK THAT PILLOW? (more coke) GIVE BACK THAT TAPE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BUY IT. (more coke) STAND BACK!!!
All of a sudden someone ran away with my iron. HEY, COME BACK WITH THAT . . . If I chased the thief, my unguarded things would be stolen, but if I remained seated. I'd lose the iron.
In need of immed
iate action, I seized the nearest thing—the hammer I had never had a chance to use. I jumped up, bounded into the air after the villain, and bashed him over the head.
Oh, my god. What have I done?
He fell, he seemed to take forever to crumple to the ground, and I had a long time to appraise the situation.
Holy shit.
Layers of Indians surrounded me. They were looking at me or were in the process of turning toward me. Sound blurred. Voices, bongo drums, and the crunch of feet blended into a noise that sounded like the rumble in a seashell. As I glanced around, expressions changed from curiosity to surprise, shock, anger, and then—as they all swiveled to face me—murderous.
I was a foreigner in an ocean of natives, one of whom I'd just knocked unconscious. Oh, shit. My life was over. I was sure of it.
In slow motion they came at me from every side. I clearly saw homicide in the eye of the woman who grabbed my left arm, and the man who grabbed my right one, and the person who grabbed my hair, and the two who took hold of my shoulder, and the one at my elbow. The seashell sound became a giant curse uttered by my captors. I was positive my life was over.
Then suddenly they were gone. Four policemen herded away the lynch mob.
I found out that the man I had hit was a policeman, an undercover Customs officer. Apparently a team of them patrolled flea markets to prevent Westerners from selling taxable items. The officer had taken my iron to investigate its status.
I was led through the mass of angry faces to the Calangute police station. As usual there were no facilities for women, and I was once again kept in a bathroom. An Indian woman sat with me. I went to the toilet to excavate the stash from beneath my dress and snorted a large amount of coke. Then, thinking I should probably calm myself down, I snorted a large hit of dope. On the other hand, I needed to cheer up from that harrowing experience, so I did more coke. Oh my god. Had I killed a policeman?
No, I found out he wasn't dead. He'd been taken to the hospital in Panjim. What would become of me? Would I be imprisoned forever for assaulting an officer of the law?