“And again,” goes Ferang, “the purpose of life for some is their own children.” Ferang turns to Nil. “Am I making any sense here?”
“Oh,” says Mel, her voice heated, “isn’t it right?”
“And why would this be wrong?” Ferang is gesturing, sitting on the edge of his chair. “It may be a shortcut, but it allows you to fulfill yourself and avoid a life of utter meaninglessness. What’s so wrong about it?”
“Simple,” a spark lights Mel’s pupils. “People chasing their dreams give up at the first hint of failure knowing that they can settle for an easier bliss.”
Nil studies their faces. They are exotic, both familiar and bizarre. He can smell his own sweat exhaling from the collar of his shirt.
“But you say this on the assumption that giving birth to a new life is not a success in itself,” says Ferang in a dismissive tone. “Yet it is. Bringing an individual into the world is an achievement by itself.”
“Sure thing, one that brings no benefit to the rest of the world, and instead ensures approximately eighty years of waste and pollution, in the best of cases, that is. While, had you not gone in for the shortcut, had you not given up on becoming a scientist and finding the cure for cancer, if you were committed enough rather than giving into the fear of being alone, you might have made the change the world so badly needs.”
Some kind of rock song that Nil can’t quite place starts rambling in the background.
“But this requires supreme sacrifices,” Mel says, “it requires that you leave behind everything you love to get out of your bubble, and above all it gives you no certainty, which means that you may go through hell to reach your goal and fail anyway.”
Mel points those raw green eyes of hers on both of them, first one then the other, but perhaps, thinks Nil, they linger a moment longer on him. He leans forward towards her on the table, almost lifting his ass off the chair.
“That’s why people give up,” she goes. “They end up saying, ‘It’s not my cup of tea.’ And it is quite convenient that the best alternative, and one which is encouraged by society, is to bang—procreate. And there you have it, the majority of the population of the world seeking satisfaction in a lesser dream by indulging in their animal complacency, which is by the way nothing more than a chemical treat for having fucked.”
Fuck. Even a word as salty sounds ecstatic if coming from her lips.
Ferang shakes his head, the dream of a smile on his lips. “You’re thinking from a pretty privileged point of view, Mel. You assume that everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential, while many are stuck in horrible situations, with no way out.”
“There is always a possibility, if you fight enough—”
“What do you even know about the struggles of the poor—”
“Ah!” she goes. “Stop patronizing me.”
“For these people to have children is not only the best solution,” Ferang says without missing a beat, “it’s the only way to get a bit of your happiness.”
“So in order for you to be happy, the rest of the world has to suffer?”
“Maybe so,” snorts Ferang.
Mel claps her hands once and rolls her eyes and grimaces with glaring disgust, but Ferang attacks before she can answer.
“You can afford to speak about the world and the big picture because you’re sitting in a luxury bar drinking expensive liquor. But you have no idea how it is down there, where people live in extreme poverty, you just can’t understand. Or maybe now, just because you started doing some volunteering work with prostitutes in the Pit, now you think you’re entitled to have an opinion? For those people it’s not escapism, it’s survival.”
“Then the people you work with, your kids, don’t have dreams, huh?” Mel replies, raising her voice. “Don’t they dream of becoming doctors and CEO and cricketers? Or perhaps their biggest dream is to have children, too?”
“Everyone has aspirations—”
“But maybe the point here is that it’s the community that forces these women to have children, or the parents, or the religion. What about the hope you go on and on talking about, then?”
“They all aspire,” Ferang says. “But these people had to set their aspirations aside long ago, to deal with life. All they can hope for now is a bit of happiness. Maybe they don’t want to have children, maybe they are forced to do so, but when they do have them, it’s amazing. They’re happy. And that’s what really matters.”
“Do you actually believe in what you say?” Mel murmurs after a moment, staring at the decoration behind the bar.
“Sure...” Ferang hesitates, then he snorts and smiles. “I live for these people.”
“I—” Nil stutters and his heartbeat is painfully slow, and though the other two are not really looking at him, he has the distinct feeling of having their total attention. “Our parents are successful people,” he says. “And moreover, they got their share of hope with our births—” He pauses, confused, then he resumes talking. “Sure it’s good to see accomplished children on their portfolio of exceptional human beings. But they still found a way to mess us up. Maybe the world would be a better place without us.”
Mel takes a long sip, pauses to observe the circle that the bottom of her glass left on the wood and then she looks at Ferang, and Nil feels that, perhaps for the first time, what he said might have tipped the balance, and Ferang, after a moment of apparent surprise, relaxes and takes a sip of gin and makes a satisfied sound.
“Whatever,” he says, putting his glass back on the table.
The waiter is lighting another cigarette for the Smoking Woman. In the throes of impatience, Nil decides that the music here is trash and that is ruining the atmosphere and so, raising his forefinger, he calls the waiter and asks for the song to be changed and with the corner of his eye he sees Mel glancing at him weird, and then the waiter is fiddling around with the jukebox, but the next song, just like the previous one, has this annoying background cacophony that makes Nil itch. He feels exasperation mounting inside.
“Let me talk to the owner,” he says.
“Yes, sir,” says the waiter bowing his head, slipping towards a small door behind the counter.
“Are you serious?” goes Ferang. “These are the Clash, for God’s sake.” There is pent up anger in his tone.
Nil digs through his recent Western music education but nothing comes up.
“Really, Nil?” Mel says. “You really don’t know the Clash?”
“I know them...” He trails off, feeling his cheeks fill with blood. He can’t name even one of their songs.
“We have a lot to teach you,” goes Ferang, and he giggles and his gaze meets Mel’s and, relieved, Nil thinks that at least he found something to make them agree upon.
“Well, let’s get to work.” Mel brushes her fair fingers on the folder and she opens it and one corner of the first page is lifted in the air only to fall back and perfectly realign with the rest of the stack. The pages look smooth and cool and, Nil is sure of it, must smell good, too.
Ferang takes a big gulp. “What’s new?”
“What’s new is that we have always tried to enter from the front door,” says Mel, “when we could have broken the window.” She curls her lips in satisfaction.
Here it comes. This is Nil’s turf, his natural environment. He feels anxiety subside, his senses heighten and the damn music seem to die down, too, and he can smell her perfume wafting through the air, his eyes sliding across her pink eleven thousand rupees Ralph Lauren blouse, and he doesn’t even fear that she might think he’s staring at her boobs. Yes, this is his territory indeed, the investigation, and then he looks up, and Mel is looking at him straight in the eyes, oh yes, she’s looking right
MEL
through him.
“Go on,” says Ferang.
Mel stares at him for a moment, he can barely blink, she notices, then she focuses on the sheets in the open folder, her fingers scrolling on the side of the pages, her foot still tou
ching Nil’s leg under the table.
“In the recent months we’ve been trying to track down Ameen as a water smuggler, an arduous feat, to say the least—”
“We know, Mel,” goes Ferang, “no need for the recap.”
“It’s important,” she says. “He’s careful, he doesn’t leave traces behind. Or rather, he leaves them everywhere, and they’re all perfectly legal. He knows how to do his job and I fear that even if we’d investigate for years, we wouldn’t expose him.” Mel stops, glances at her glass, looks up at Percy for another round—the flow of her thoughts muffled by alcohol—but Percy is nowhere to be seen.
“But he’s greedy,” she continues. “The water business is not enough for him, so the piece of shit deals, too.”
“How do you know?” asks Ferang, the skepticism in his voice making her grit her teeth.
“The Hijra,” goes Nil.
Mel nods. “And the drug business, unlike the water business, is not a monopoly in this city, and people talk and competitors are ready to do anything to get one more slice of the cake, and even among customers loyalty doesn’t run deep.”
“So it’s not a mafia we’re talking about anymore,” goes Ferang.
“It’s a Cartel,” says Nil.
Mel looks at him. He might be an antisocial, stuttering elitist, she thinks, but when he is reporting, he is fucking Clark Kent.
“Do we have a name—like, an alias for when he peddles drugs?” Nil’s voice is vibrant with expectation.
“Rupesh.”
Nil’s heart miss a beat. She can see it on his face.
“That’s right,” says Mel. “The drug dealer of our college mates and Ameen, the biggest mobster in Ayodhya, are the same person.”
“Ameen the boss,” goes Ferang brushing something invisible off the table.
“This drug dealing business,” says Nil, “did it start after the Hijra unified the slum?”
“Gabriel,” corrects Ferang. “His name is Gabriel, not Hijra.”
“I’ve no idea,” Mel goes. “I’ll ask Gabriel tonight.”
“Brilliant,” says Ferang, grinning widely. “We’re getting closer, and the piece of shit doesn’t even know we’re closing on him.”
“We are still far from the truth,” says Mel, brushing a lock of hair away from her forehead, uncovering her protruding ears.
“Yes,” says Ferang, patting Nil on the back, “but with this hound among our ranks...” Despite being engrossed in his own thoughts, Nil trembles when Ferang touches him.
“We need more,” says Nil after a moment of silence. “We have no evidence, and even if we did, we can’t frame him for drug dealing. He would be out in an hour. In fact, he wouldn’t even see the face of a police station. We know he has the police in his pocket.”
His burning passion, his eyes fixed on the folder but lost, far away, contemplating—Mel loves all this about him.
“We have to find a way to link the drugs to the water,” says Nil.
“He also deals in the slum,” Mel says.
“The coward,” spits Ferang.
Mel taps her empty glass with a fingernail. “The government is with him,” she says. “Of that I am sure.”
“Or at least the corrupt part,” goes Nil, the Optimist-in-denial.
Silence. The muffled sound of the honking jam coming from the road above.
“We don’t even know if Ameen is his real name.”
“It’s probably not,” says Mel. “He uses different names for each of its operations.”
“They’re dying,” says Ferang with a shudder, and it’s so credible it’s almost touching. “People are literally dying of thirst in the Pit.”
“We’ll need the support of the media,” goes Nil.
“Massive support,” says Mel.
“And if we want that to happen,” says Nil, “we have to give them something impossible to ignore. Something sexy.” He lifts his head, squinting as if in an apology. “You know how they are, journalists...”
***
The tray glides above their heads. Percy serves them drinks with extreme caution.
“Sorry,” he says, “the boss is busy at the moment. He’ll be with you as soon as possible.” He vanishes.
Ferang takes a sip of his Gin Rickey. “We have our connection, anyway.”
“Yes, the Hijra,” says Nil.
“Gabriel,” says Ferang. “His name is Gabriel, Nil.”
“I hope he has the information we need,” goes Nil before drinking half of his Sazerac in a long sip.
“And who else?” Mel takes a sip of her over-full Chai Russian, careful not to spill even a drop of it. “There is no one else.”
“The leader of the Pit and the leader of the Ring.” Ferang crosses his fingers behind his head, stretching. “It sounds almost poetic.”
“I thought you said people were dying over there,” says Mel without looking at him, emphasizing on the wrong word, as always.
Ferang clicks his tongue. “Death is always poetic.”
***
When Mel takes her leave, her senses are pleasantly muted by alcohol. Opening the front door, she bids farewell to Percy. She lingers a moment to look at the tapestry, perhaps Persian, covering the wall behind the bar.
“A large tree,” she murmurs, looking at the pattern, but she can’t be sure, the LED lights around the shelves packed with bottles distorting the shapes on the tapestry.
“We should go on that bike ride. It would do us good...” Nil is saying, and this is the last thing she hears before the honking outside shrouds her.
Evening has fallen, but the seat of the Enfield is still hot to the touch. Mel sits on it, feeling the thrill of the bike pressed against her thighs. She closes her fingers around the rubber of the handlebar and leans forward, the fuel tank touching her abdomen. Mel waits for a gap in the flow of traffic. She drives into it.
A pervasive, rancid smell always hovers in the air in Ayodhya. It’s not exactly disgusting, just slightly revolting. It smells like farts, or something you don’t really want to sniff, but when it’s there, you can’t help but smelling.
Mel drives in front of Phoenix Mall. Here the traffic is so congested that pedestrians move faster than motorized vehicles, her AirPods playing “The Nutcracker” by Tchaikovsky while the honking around her vandalizes the music in her ears.
Driving along Grand Trunk Road, Mel strays away from the calmer neighborhoods of the Ring. She moves with the traffic as it gets slower, inch by inch, and stops entirely when the Fence, a long, black line slicing the horizon, appears. On one side of it, the rich and the wealthy live; on the other, the renegades, the scraps and the ragged survive.
Mel inches along the Fence crossing a suspension bridge over a river that is no more. The river has now succumbed to a swarm of black and gray shacks, old and young, some sharp, some smashed by the merciless heat; and an endless array of houses made of tin, plastic and asbestos: lit or dark, mute or chirping in the leaden evening.
Here is the Pit, covering the parched riverbed. But the Indian upper class travel in their Audi, BMW and Mercedes-branded space ships where the air is always fresh and clean. They pierce through ghosts of dust, gliding through the streets, leaving another India behind, forever. They land in their shopping centers, in their glossy restaurants, in their clubs dense with light and foreign food and Western brands, taking refuge in hatches where they can enter without the outer atmosphere touching them. They eat ice cream and waffles, and sushi, and beef; they buy Burberry, Persol, Samsung; they watch Clooney, Nolan and Kidman. Finally, when their intergalactic trip is over, they return to their spacecrafts and glide over what for them isn’t but a large and empty desert. It doesn’t concern them in the slightest. They make it back to the mothership, where automatons fling open safety-gates, waving, bowing, clasping their hands, calling them “Sir” and “Ma’am”; ever ready to protect these Indian rich from their own brethren.
Mel rids herself of the traffic jam. Accelerates. Leav
es Candil behind.
Old Ayodhya. The last glimpses of daylight dissolve in the sky above the roofs of the low buildings of the old city. Black kites fly, their strings tracing broken trajectories, avoiding the electrical wires hanging in tangles in this air full of dust and smoke. The minarets of the Mosque of Kazimar crouch casting shadows above the roofs in the hazy distance.
Old Ayodhya looks fierce, hostile to visitors.
“Wonderful,” Mel whispers resting her ballerinas on the cracked tar for balance, whenever the traffic—now counting animals and drunkards—keeps the motorcycle from advancing. She pushes through a maze of crumbling houses and proud dumps that all look identical, identical to the one in which Ferang lives, somewhere in this neighborhood.
Mel parks near the statue of Bapu, on which pigeons, and under which humans, shit. Mel conceals her smile when she sees two stray brats recognize her. They run toward her, ogling the Enfield, reaching out with cupped hands. They recognize her, or they recognize her wallet.
Mel pulls out fifty rupees, glad at least that they don’t identify her only with her shit-blond hair or washed-out skin anymore. She hands them the bill, promising another if on her return at least half of her bike will still be there. The children giggle at the joke and stand like Queen’s guard at the sides of the vehicle.
Lazeez, the restaurant smugglers use as a gate to arrange their trafficking, opens its doors in front of the Breach, the only unsupervised point of intersection between the Pit and the rest of the city, through which day and night hundreds of labourers slink, bent by the humongous loads of merchandise they carry on their shoulders. Before entering, Mel takes a scarf from her bag and wraps it around her head.
The inside of the old restaurant reeks of stale food, countless specks of mold covering the brick walls and the plastered ceiling. They’re almost invisible to the eye of a casual visitor but, once you see them, they’re impossible to ignore.
Giving way to a portly fellow as he moves towards the exit, Mel walks with confidence and tries to ignore the stains in vain. The thought that so many customers can enjoy their kabab and chillum without the trouble of acknowledging the texture of the reality around them disturbs her deeply. She’d go crazy, she tells herself, if she worked there.
Objects in the Mirror Page 6