“She’s crying,” goes the Bear. The mirror stands free, the sheet lying on the bed.
Ferang smiles. “Of course she isn’t,” says Ferang, chopping another onion.
“You left because you hate to see her cry, and yet you love be the cause of it.” The Bear, in his voluminous costume, takes up most of the mirror. “You are black inside,” he adds. “I’m white, and I’m here to save your soul.”
“Oh?” says Ferang. He focuses on the vegetables.
The Bear goes silent. He keeps on looking at him through the narrow corridor. Ferang cuts with renewed vigor. He snorts. He looks up.
“Please, let me be a human being,” he pleads. A hint of supplication lurks in his words.
The Bear’s tone remains unaltered. “Why do you want to be a human being when you can be so much more?”
The knife slips from his hand. Ferang cuts his finger. He brings it to his lips. The taste of blood.
He moves as if to pick the knife up again, instead he abandons it on the stool. “Across the mirror, the shadow becomes the truth, and I the reflection of the reflection.” The light coming from the other room lights up the edges of the mirror. “I will always be lower than the character I created, isn’t it?”
“You?” The Bear laughs. “You created me?”
Ferang feels the hint of a panic rising inside him. He grabs the knife. He points it to his own jugular. “What if I kill myself? What would you do, huh?”
“Do it, Tyler,” says the Bear. “Do it and set me free.”
“Stop talking to yourself,” Suresh screams from the other room, his voice drawling.
“No one’s talking, you fucking drunkard!” yells Ferang in response.
The Bear’s imposing presence looms beyond the mirror.
“What are you looking at?” hisses Ferang in his direction.
The Bear doesn’t answer, but his mask, now, in the subdued light, seems to smile.
The next day, Ferang accompanies the Doc shopping with part of the funds he raised at the gala event. Vaccines. Antibiotics. Then they spend half of the day piercing the arm of the children of the Breach. Ferang disinfects. The doctor injects. Ferang holds the lollipop. Harvesting smiles left and right. He doesn’t go to class because he’s better than benches, chairs and Powerpoint presentations.
He thinks about swinging by the Gymkhana for a swim but decides for a Zomato dinner at home, meeting the others at the Dome.
The Dome, the most popular club in the city, is an aptophobic orgy. Here gathers the crème de la crème of the Indian youth, their hands in the air, their hips moving. Eminem, Rihanna, David Guetta, the DJ has no problem playing four years old music. Gray Goose, Dom Perignon, Belvedere, only imported alcohol bubbles in the glasses of the elite. All are flirting. Everybody crowds on the dance floor, they send kisses to the cameras, taking selfies, they whisper provocative pick-up lines in each other’s ears. But they don’t touch. No one really touches anyone else. They all want to make out but they are all ready to judge if you do. The girls are semi-naked, but they boys are better not looking too close. Nobody touches. Nobody.
Ferang observes the scene, standing on top of the staircase. He tries to drown the disgust he feels, in vain. A tiny bourgeoisie dancing on top of the world while the rest rots beneath it. Fuck them all. Ferang closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, banishing the thought. He wipes his mind clean. A whiteboard. Removing every last trace of that idea. Opening his eyes, he can smile again.
Slowly, he climbs down the stairs. Deliberately. In a benevolent way. As the morally superior being that he is. Everybody knows it. Everyone looks at him. Some follow him with their eyes. And those who don’t, they do notice him, but choose to ignore him on purpose, he knows. It doesn’t work, no, the trick doesn’t work with him. Ferang is here, folks. The wait is over. Let the party begin.
He throws himself on the dance floor. Golden LED lights cut through the crowd revealing their faces, the faces of the people, but only for an instant. After a moment, they are back to being dancing mannequins. Ferang is a bad dancer. But he couldn’t care less. He is here to have fun tonight. His legs and his arms flap uncoordinatedly. A group of classmates surround him. He knows the names of perhaps half of them. They dance with him anyway. With him. For him. Ferang clear his mind. He tries to. A beam of red light falls between them. Ferang plunges in. He closes his eyes. He opens his arms. Smiling, he throws his head back. Dances. With the others. For the others. Reaches out toward Vidya. He invites her to get closer. Vidya, Ferang is aware of it, admires him for his volunteer work, and extends her hand as well. They don’t touch. Their fingers don’t touch. Like in front of a mirror. Without touching her, Ferang draws her to himself, making her spin. He smells the essence of her body, but that’s it. Without touching her, he pushes her away, and he pushes himself backwards at the same time. It’s like pushing yourself in front of the mirror. You are white. Banish the thought. His mind is a blank slate, a blank slate. He dances alone, eyes half closed, a smile lingering on his lips. Dances alone. A One-man-show. He backs up to the bar, places an elbow on the counter. He snaps his fingers at the bartender, but the gesture makes him sick.
“How are you?” he asks the bartender, apologetically.
The big guy seems dazed. “Fine, sir,” he says. He hesitates. He takes off a white glove. Then he hastens to put it on again.
“A Gin Rickey, kindly.”
The bartender shakes his head, confused. “Sir—” He takes off his glove. “Sorry, we don’t have it.” He puts it back on.
“Oh.” Ferang feels happy about it but feigns disappointment. “A daiquiri, then.” Ferang turns halfway toward the crowd. Keeping an ear out to hear the bartender’s response.
“Sorry, sir. We don’t have it, sir.”
Ferang turns and stares at him. “Ten shots of Jägermeister.”
They have that. Once refueled, Ferang begins to search for others. He sees Priyal. And she him. She is dancing with Imal, of course. The alcohol is kicking in. She’s dancing with Imal and their bodies are close. Their bodies are a statement of the relationship that binds them. Yet they do not touch. Seeing Ferang, Priyal moves away from Imal. Only a little, but enough for his pathetic sixth sense to activate. He turns around. He sees Ferang. Their eyes lock. Neither of them smile. Between them, a crowd of youth loaded with money dance the night away. Neither of them smile. Priyal calls Imal to attention, giving a tug at his imaginary leash. Docile, he smiles and turns. But she keeps on looking at Ferang, fleetingly, and Ferang smiles with satisfaction.
He resumes his dance. Alone. Squints. He lets the bad music carry him away. Ferang is a bad dancer. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t because everything is allowed to him. All is his due. Even the most daring moves.
A sari in the corner of the room catches his attention, but maybe it’s just the alcohol that really starts to crank it up.
Humani from Public Relations approaches him, chubby and bold as only the Bombay girls can be. “Encore” by Linkin Park. But Humani dances in a Bollywood-like way. Heavy. Jerky. Fluid. They get closer. Ferang knows that Humani is a friend of Priyal’s and Priyal is still looking. For this very reason, as he dances, he brushes his own buttock against her. He makes it seem an accidental contact. He feels a lump of restlessness inside but he chases it away. It dissolves into him. Ferang raises his fist and shakes it in the air. Singing, he makes up his own words. They have nothing to do with the actual song, but he couldn’t care less. He can.
“And I need you to forget one thing,” sings Ferang, grabbing her by the shoulders. “I came, I tried, I failed.”
The Bear.
“What?” screams Humani.
Ferang breaks the contact. He nods and backs off, pretending to be hypnotized by the music. He shakes his head to the rhythm of it. His hairdo disintegrates, scattered strands bouncing across his face.
The Bear on the earrings of a chick with a fat face but a model’s body.
The Bear trapped in the re
flection of a glass.
The Bear, everywhere, ready to intervene.
Ferang grabs Humani by her hips. She seems surprised but after a moment she smiles showing her perfect teeth. Ferang knows that tomorrow she will bitch about him. He doesn’t care. He puts both hands on her hips. If he moves lower he can touch her ass. A big one. Big but flat. No thanks. He moves his crotch closer to her body. Everyone dances. Nobody pays attention to them, apparently, but they all look out of the corner of their eyes, Ferang knows that, he just knows. Ferang’s knees. Humani’s knees. Ferang’s. That of Humani. Ferang’s lips around the straw of Humani’s drink, a disgraceful Sex on the Beach. He drinks. He drinks and she doesn’t seem to bother. Ferang takes his lips off. Humani offers him some more. So kind. So kind. So kind. I’d smash her nose with—He sees the Bear reflected in the ice, and looking away, the Bear reflected on the wet bar counter. Ferang chases the thought away, laughing. His hand. Slips down. Slides up. Her neck. Humani’s cheek. Her ear and neck. All are watching him. I walk among you but—the Bear, reflected everywhere around them, draws closer yet he cannot speak. It’s the alcohol that keeps him at bay. Yes. Success. The lights cut through the crowd like the blade of a guillotine. Ferang has his hands on Humani face. He touches her thick hair, black, frizzy, scattered on her sweaty forehead. Everything about her reflects his presence. Humani’s lips.
Ferang backs away at the very last moment. His lips, now far away, hatch. They talk. “Hope or truth?”
“What?” she says.
“I said, hope or truth?”
Suspicion tinges her face. “I don’t understand.” A pause. “The music’s too loud.”
The Bear reflected in the glasses of the girls dancing all around. The Bear reflected in the stones of the rings they wear. The Bear reflected on belts and in a beer puddles on the ground.
Ferang is going to ask her the same question again, but the Bear appears before him, right behind her. While Ferang dances with Humani, the Bear is reflected everywhere around them and his mask is impenetrable but his teeth seem to outline a grin. In one hand he holds his usual chainsaw. He leans over the girl’s neck. The Bear starts dancing, too. Ferang is shocked, but the Bear shakes his head to the rhythm of music and sways his hips inside the baggy costume. The Bear is not there, yet he is.
Humani is looking at him with outright distrust, and so Ferang smiles a little and starts to dance more convincingly and soon, following an involuntary impulse, he is following the Bear’s movements, his body closer to the girl’s, without touching it, moving as if to take her hands but caressing the air instead, smelling her hair instead of sinking his face in it.
Both the Bear and Ferang envelop her without indulging in the pleasure of physical contact, besieging her with the threat of their touch, of their hot breath, and so they touch her without touching her, placing their mental hands on her thighs, between her legs, around her throat.
Humani leaps backward. The Bear is gone. She seems on the point of pushing Ferang. The music is loud, the notes make no more sense.
Ferang holds her gaze, forgetting for a moment to smile.
“They’re cute, your Western-like shoes, these almost-good quality imitations,” he says, his eyes fixed on Humani. “It’s cute, your effort to be better. To be like us.”
“What?” Humani shouts above the din.
Ferang blinks. “I feel like throwing up,” he says.
Humani nods. She pretends that she understood. Her eyes now betray a hint of fear.
“Go now.” Ferang dismisses her with a wave of his hand. He remembers to smile this time.
Humani takes one step back. She goes back to dancing to cover up her discomfort. She smiles back but she keeps her eyes wide open, fixed on him. Ferang is immobile, observing her making her way toward the bar. He observes. He is still staring at her. He knows that she is going to drink till she passes out tonight. In his skull echoes a sound similar to that of an air-raid siren, those same sirens from the old World War II movies, the colorized ones, which for some reason are always on in the background when someone commits suicide by hanging.
Racist motherfucker.
In the corner of the room, the same sari catches his attention again. This time he is positive it’s not a hallucination.
“Nil,” he hisses, looking around, “where the fuck are you?”
He crosses the dancing crowd. In passing, Priyal’s hand intercepts his own. She holds it. Urging. Seeking confirmation. But Ferang has no time for this. He turns for an instant and smiles at her. Hoping it’s a nice smile. Imal smiles back, looking at their intertwined fingers. He pretends not to see them. Priyal breaks the contact, and Ferang is lost among the people.
“Titanium” by Sia makes the dancers shout with joy. Nobody seems to care that it is an almost prehistoric piece.
Ferang slips between the spaces that separate a body from another. Towards the middle of the floor, the crowd becomes denser. Ferang pushes through, bumping against a girl. She staggers and gives him a resentful look. But then she realizes who he is and smiles at him. Ferang doesn’t even stop to return her greeting. He knows nothing will happen to him, nothing can happen to him. He knows.
And there is no trace of Nil.
In the bathroom the music is muffled. Long backlit mirrors stretch up to ceiling. A dead-drunk guy faces his own reflection, glancing at it, his eyes wide like those of a suicidal lover. He doesn’t seem to notice the presence of Ferang. The door of one of the stalls slams open. A kid, his eyes haunted, clenching his fists and jaw, joins the first guy in front of the mirror. Ferang wonders how old he might be. Not too old.
“Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO. The music is deafening outside.
“Nil,” Ferang calls. The corridor that leads to the bathrooms is long and strewn with wrecked people wrapped in designer clothes. The walls are painted red and black. The corridor is long and eventually bends, disappearing. There, someone stands, wearing a crimson sari.
A girl passing by stares at Ferang from head to foot. She grimaces. She must think she smiled at him sexily, but her brain doesn’t connect through with her lips anymore. Yeah, it must be this. He doesn’t know her, but she sure as hell knows him. She is short, hardbodied. She could be the daughter of a politician. Maybe Ferang should chat her up.
Ferang is back on the dance floor where Bollywood dance numbers accompany dated Western music. The room smells like perfume and sweat. Black, shiny hair flaps like lush jungles. You love all this.
“What the fuck am I doing here?” he shouts. No one hears him.
Smoke. Strobe lights. A red flash, then darkness, then a bath of golden light. “Feel so Close” by Calvin Harris. Mel appears. A group of girls around her. Her friends. No, of course she doesn’t know them, yet they are her best friends tonight. They dance together. They raise their arms to the ceiling showing their smooth armpits. They run their fingers through their hair. They dance around her in golden light. Mel. Her green eyes are oxidized discs. They appear for a second. They disappear behind the other girls, who fade in her presence, blurring out. Dancing, they slide towards the sides of the frame. Golden lights.
The DJ mixes Harris’ piece with some hardcore electronic music that makes your ribs jump in your belly and pushes your eyes back in their sockets. The circle of friends opens up. Mel emerges. Strobe golden lights. The psychedelic sound of a distorted bass. Mel dances. Bows her head. The dirty-blond hair falling on her shoulders, on her bare collarbone. The little black dress envelops her minute bust. Her sharp hips. Her rapid movements. Jerky. In perfect sync with the music and with the people around her. Green eyes slowly rise weighing the object of their attentions to see if he is worthy of her consideration. Following her gaze, Ferang sees Nil, standing still among the dancing throng, staring at her, stunned. His lips parted. Mel reciprocates with a severe glance, but it seems an invitation at the same time. She seems to ask if he thinks he’s man enough.
The music has degenerated into a turntable-based cacophony
of what seems to be screams of animals in agony. Repressing his anger, Ferang leaps between the two of them, stopping the exchange of glances, breaking it, tearing it apart. He grabs Nil by the shoulders.
“Where have you been hiding?” He smiles. “I’ve looked everywhere.”
Nil’s eyes, clouded by alcohol, linger over Ferang’s shoulder. Then he gets his shit together. Focuses. But he says nothing. He stammers. Nothing understandable, anyhow.
Ferang turns around. Mel is gone. Her friends are gone. Blinding light and blinding darkness alternate ceaselessly in the hall.
“C’mon.” Ferang gives him a gentle push. “Let’s get a smoke.”
Nil nods. He lets him lead. He has a drink in his hand. He totters, alcohol falling onto his blazer.
“I don’t smoke,” Ferang feels the need to point out, speaking in his ear.
At a table nearby, a group of lads uncork a Magnum of Gray Goose, earning the shrill cries of the girls around them as a reward. The waiter, a frightened looking little man with a forced smile, pours vodka into all their glasses, careful to stay out of the way and not show up in any of their selfies. Someone pours melting ice on his head.
Ferang pushes Nil toward the red and black corridor leading to the bathrooms. On the corner, a couple. They don’t touch, of course, but they are a couple. Same cast, same religion, same skin color even. They are the emancipated youth, but they marry responsibly.
The corridor is littered with shitfaced humans. Beautiful Indian features distorted by alcohol and drugs. At the end of the corridor, the smoking area, but nobody gives a shit, the whole place is a smoking area for those who can afford it.
“Let me try to find a bit of dope to pick yourself up,” goes Ferang, once they get to the point where the corridor bends out of sight. “Gonna be right back, just wait here.”
Nil looks at him dumbfounded. He takes a sip of whatever concoction fills up his glass and leans against the wall. The wall is red and black. Ferang walks away, backwards, keeping his eyes on Nil. With a dreamy look, Nil stares at his glass and pouts to take another sip, but something grabs his attention. He shakes the haze away and tries to get back upright. Surprisingly enough, he can. His eyes clear out, but at the same time he looks even drunker. And pissed. Yes, he seems pissed off. He takes one step forward. He disappears around the bend.
Objects in the Mirror Page 18