Mel is already there. She is amiably conversing with Percy, as a good wannabe would. Percy, who was giggling, gets serious when Ferang approaches. He moves to the side. Resumes cleaning the floor. The Smoking Woman is smoking at the bar.
“How’s your head?” asks Ferang, sitting.
“Better,” Mel goes. “Yours?”
“It didn’t have much effect on me.”
“Of course not.” Mel takes a sip of her Chai Russian.
Through the residual mental fog Ferang feels a touch of murderous irritation. Smiles at her. Clears his throat. “A Gin Rickey,” he orders. “And don’t be too stingy with the Gin.” He gives Mel an even wider smile.
She rolls her eyes. “What shall we tell Nil?” she asks.
“About?”
Mel furrows a brow. Slightly. Ferang can’t tell whether he’d like to kiss her or headbutt her, and if both, in what order.
“Don’t you know?” she says after a moment of silence.
“What?” Ferang slaps the air. “I don’t think a war broke out in the Pit. I would have noticed.”
“No,” says Mel sipping her Chai Russian. “Not just yet. But Gabriel was hospitalized.”
“How surprising.”
“He was hospitalized outside the Pit.”
Ferang stares at Mel. Mel holds his gaze. He lets out a sigh and searches for Percy with his eyes. The waiter is nowhere to be seen.
“You don’t have to gloat this much,” he goes. She’s still staring at him. “What, the surgery in one of the lousy clinics of the Pit somehow didn’t go too well? You must be surprised, but I’m sure you helped right away.” Mel sips her drink, unfazed. He closes his eyes, then he opens them again. “Do you really think Nil doesn’t already know?”
“It doesn’t matter whether he knows it already or not, it matters how we deal with the matter.”
“Do you think he’ll freak out?” asks Ferang, studying the room.
Mel brushes her hair to the side revealing her protruding ears. Then, as if caught out, she is quick to cover them again.
“I hope not,” add Ferang.
“Yeah,” says Mel. “Of course you don’t.”
Percy appears with his Gin Rickey.
Ferang bursts out laughing. “Old sport,” he says to the waiter. Gets up. Percy looks frightened. Ferang places one arm on the guy’s tiny shoulders. “Sit down, sit down with us,” he goes, pointing at the chairs.
Percy hesitates, on his face the expression of someone who has just seen a mythological beast.
“Come on,” Ferang encourages him. He laughs. “Come on, bhai.”
Percy sits next to Mel, clutching the tray to his chest. Mel takes another sip.
“So, Percy,” says Ferang in a fit of joy. He wavers. Then he says, “Do you like this song?”
From the jukebox, “White Rabbit” by Mayssa Karaa.
“Y—yes.”
“What do you like about this song?”
“It speaks of love,” says Percy, gazing in the direction of the speakers as if by looking directly at the source of the music he could read out the right answer.
“Love, love,” goes Ferang. “The most important thing on earth. What am I saying—in the universe!”
Mel finishes her Chai Russian in one gulp.
Percy takes the opportunity to get up.
Ferang leans across the table and grabs him by the wrist, saying, “Stay.”
Percy stops halfway. Sits down again.
Ferang can’t help but smile. He takes a sip of his Gin Rickey. The Smoking Woman exhales a puff of thick, blue smoke.
Nil enters. Percy gets up immediately. He says, “The boss will be with you shortly.”
“It’s alright, Percy,” Mel goes.
Percy vanishes. Nil takes his place. He tries to order, but Percy is gone. Ferang takes a sip of Gin Rickey. Mel throws a fleeting glance at him. Nil says nothing, looking at his hands folded on the table.
The song changes. It must be one of those pieces recorded live because for the first few minutes it’s nothing but background noise and the audience’s murmurs. None of them speak. Ferang downs his Gin Rickey. Mel plays with her empty glass. Nil stares at his own hands.
“What is it, Nil?” asks Mel. Her voice is as sweet as Ferang has ever heard.
“Nothing.”
Mel licks her lips.
“Bhai, what’s wrong?” says Ferang. His voice is warm and modulated. Fucking perfect.
“Nothing,” repeats Nil. It seems like he’s going to look up but then he stops and stares at his hands with greater intensity.
“Nil, you can tell us,” goes Ferang.
“It’s nothing, really.”
“Bhai, don’t keep it inside. That’s what we’re here for.”
Nil hesitates. A flash crosses his eyes. Anger, perhaps. But “It’s nothing,” he goes again.
Percy arrives with another round of drinks. They drink four each, listening to the music, in silence. Or rather, Ferang enjoys the music while the other two are left to their own thoughts.
Two hours later, when they get up to decamp, the drug-induced fog is gone and Ferang feels the good old restlessness swell again. Like the tide.
Outside, the night is humid and their clothes get heavy and damp on the skin. Nil again seems on the verge of saying something but remains silent. Mel guns the Enfield.
“Shall I drop you?” she asks.
“No,” says Ferang, grinning. “I’m seeing Priyal for dinner.”
“Where?” Nil asks.
“Dome.”
“I’ll take you there?” Nil keeps his eyes to the ground. When he looks up, in his pupils lurks a glimmer of supplication.
In the car, neither of them speak. Manuj plays pop music but Nil, perhaps embarrassed by his own taste, asks him to turn it off. He moves as if to get a drink from the minibar but thinks better of it and lights a cigarette, staring out the window.
The Dome, on top of its skyscraper, sparkles irradiating the neighboring buildings with light. The tower of the World Bank stands behind it.
“Thanks.” Ferang opens the door. Then he leans toward Nil, placing a hand on his leg. He grips it as a sign of encouragement. He gets out and closes the door behind him.
In the elevator, Ferang checks himself out in the mirror and fixes the flaps of the sleeves of his shirt. It’s a nice designer shirt, a white one that he packed when he got out in the morning. He runs a hand through his hair. They are still clean but made wild by the humid climate. He runs his tongue over his teeth. Clicks it. Perfect.
Ferang knows to be late. This is on purpose. He plays with the buttons of his shirt while the bouncers pretend to look for his name on the list. Priyal has booked a table, her father owns a share of the hotel, but who are they kidding? They would let him in anyway.
“Hey,” he greets her, sitting at their table. “Sorry I’m late.”
“As always.” Priyal smiles.
Ferang smiles back. Opens the menu without reading it. Priyal is texting on WhatsApp, the tips of her pretty fingers frolicking on the screen. Ferang waits for her to be done.
“So, the exam?” he asks after a while. Priyal is still texting.
“I think well, maybe I bombed a question, the first one, but it was good overall.” Her gaze oscillates between Ferang and the iPhone, demonstrating a commendable skill in distributing equitable attention to both.
Ferang laughs.
“What?” she says, smiling back as if she really cares.
“Nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
“I did Mel.”
They both laugh heartily.
“You think you’re funny?” she teases. The way she glances at him is spectacular.
“Sometimes.”
Priyal smiles to the screen. Her perfectly aligned, white teeth reflect the frenzy of her messages.
“I visited the orphanage a couple of days ago.”
“Yeah?” Priyal puts down her phone, but right away
it flashes in an orgy of notifications.
“Yes,” he says.
“You should try the profiteroles here,” she says, picking up the iPhone again. “They are exquisite.”
“Is the chef French?”
“What else?”
Ferang calls the waiter, but Priyal orders.
The city peeps at them from below like a field of cherries on black velvet, the whistling of cars confined to the base of the tower and replaced by the breeze. The parapet, glass and steel. Ferang studies both of their reflected bodies. He wonders whether she might be anorexic. He must ignore the part of himself that hopes she is.
“Sometimes you unsettle me,” he says.
“I do?”
“Yes.”
Silence on the terrace.
“We should see this movie that just came out about...”
Ferang looks around. The crowd of waiters. Pairs of white and brown youth at yet another date. He invokes the food.
“I have to work tonight,” he interrupts her at some point.
“What do you mean?”
“That I have to meet the most prominent figure of the slum.”
“I mean, what does it mean for us?”
“Us?”
“Us, tonight.”
“Sure.”
“Sure what?” Her gaze falls on the iPhone screen.
“At my place.” Ferang sighs. “You can study while we do it,” he jokes.
Priyal smiles. She looks at the same time bothered and intrigued at the thought of intercourse. Priyal doesn’t fuck, of course.
Ferang stops a waiter. Orders a Gin Rickey. With ice. The drink comes in no time at all. It sucks. Priyal doesn’t drink.
“How’s the guy doing?” asks Ferang.
“Who?”
“The guy from the party. The one who fell from the roof?”
“He’s dead. I updated my Facebook.”
“Sorry I didn’t like your post. I’ll do it later.”
“Nevermind.” Priyal takes his hand.
“Text me while you’re studying,” he says, mellowed by physical contact.
“Sure,” she says. She brushes her hair behind her ears and says, “And you while you’re away.”
“Where?”
“At the orphanage.”
“I’ve just been there.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was amazing.”
Both withdraw their hands. A sheen of sweat between his fingers. Both look beyond the Dome terrace. Ferang can see her eyeing a young Australian guy sipping a soft drink near the elevator. Then Priyal turns as if she remembered something important.
“You know I love you, right?” she says.
Ferang feels his limbs relax. Relieved, he breathes out. He takes his iPhone out of his pocket, browses through the apps and opens Gmail. He’s the old-fashioned type, and doesn’t use WhatsApp. Or so he tells girls.
He sends her a heart. A red heart.
The notification illuminates her face. Priyal seems happy—neither more nor less than before.
Once they finish their dinner, Ferang pretends to want to pay the bill, but Priyal is adamant. She goes on saying that her father would not let a friend pay at his restaurant. Ferang nods with sympathy. Before the elevator doors open on the ground floor, Priyal kisses him on the cheek. When she hops into her limo, Ferang waves. Priyal doesn’t turn around.
He sighs. On Sunrise Drive tonight the breeze smells like the sea. Yeah, sure it does.
The white and golden-stripped Mercedes is still parked outside the hotel, as Ferang expected.
“Shall we?” he says, opening the door and sitting down.
Nil doesn’t make a sound. Manuj turns on the ignition and starts driving. The music now is slow and classy, something by Chet Baker, Ferang assumes, that Nil must have ripped off from Mel.
The buildings around Sunrise from luxurious become opulent. Splitting the earth, the Saifee Hospital emerges. Manuj pulls over in front of a secondary entrance.
“Take this,” says Nil, handing Ferang a pink pass.
“Sure you don’t want to come?”
Nil leans back, squinting. He shakes his head. Looks at Ferang with apologetic eyes.
Ferang steps out. Cutting through the main hall of the hospital, he notices a couple of reporters and photojournalists dozing on the benches, probably hoping to be the first to sink their teeth into a night scoop. Shit might hit the fan soon.
The hallways are immaculate, marble stairs with pride in its every veining. The lighting intense to the last corner but never intrusive. Ferang shows the pass to a nurse at the reception of the surgery department, and another nurse accompanies him into the room. She stops a few meters before the door, giving Ferang the opportunity to enter whenever he feels ready. How kind. Ferang ponders the idea of punching her in the stomach.
“Gabs,” says Ferang, entering the room.
Gabriel, half lying in bed, doesn’t seem surprised to see him. “You’re here,” he says. There is a of hint relief in his voice.
“I came as soon as I could.”
“How are you?” Gabriel asks, trying to pull himself up.
“Me?” goes Ferang with a slight smile. “You, rather, how do you feel?”
“Lighter.”
They both laugh.
“They treat you well here?”
“Very.”
“I’ll make sure you lack nothing.”
“I know you will.”
Silence.
“Do you want me want to convey a message to the Pit on your behalf?”
“Muthupal.”
“Muthupal?”
“Muthupal,” Gabriel says. “He will succeed me.”
“Don’t say that, please. In less than no time you’ll be out of here and kicking.”
Gabriel chuckles. “You don’t really have to give the news,” he says. “They already know my decision in the Pit.”
“You’ll be fine,” says Ferang.
“Please, old friend.”
Ferang looks around the room. He looks at the next-gen TV hanging on the wall. Gabriel picks up the remote and turns it on.
“There’s something else I want from you,” he says.
“Anything.” Ferang sits on a chair. Not too close to the bed but not too far away either.
“Santosh.”
Ferang waits in silence.
“I want you to stay by his side.”
“I will.”
“No,” Gabriel says. He shakes his head slightly. He repeats, “I want you to stay by his side.”
Ferang nods.
Gabriel tries to sit up. Ferang helps him placing pillows behind his back. Touches his protruding vertebrae. Touches his hand, hot and pulsing with life. Stops. The contact. So close. So very close to his body.
“It’s not me,” Ferang whispers. Maybe if he talks softly enough the Bear won’t hear. Yeah, wishful thinking.
Gabriel is staring at him, void of any expression.
“It’s not me—”
“I was born in Kerala, did you know?” says Gabriel, cutting him off. “As you can imagine, growing up in a fishing village twenty years ago was not too easy for someone like me.”
“I can only imagine.”
Gabriel waits for Ferang to sit down.
“Despite the beatings I took from my family, despite the beatings I took from others, every Sunday before Mass I would comb my hair with coconut oil and wear braids. When my dad cut my hair, I started painting my nails, coloring my lips red. People didn’t like it but, you see, for me it wasn’t about rebellion. For me it was a necessity.”
Ferang looks at him with intensity, as if a simple glance could reach into his essence, caress his soul. You poor idiot.
“The day I ran away was the last time I saw my family. To my knowledge, none of them have ever looked for me. They would have beaten me to death, if I had stayed.” Gabriel smoothens the sheet on his belly. “I was eleven when I started to sell my body on the street. It was the only
way for a runaway child with no one to survive. One day a gentleman came to see me, took me away with him and, once at his home, raped me with a group of friends. They fucked me and beat me for days. When the police arrived, I had to hide under the bed for fear of taking a beating from them also. I still keep the bloodied clothes I wore in those days.” Gabriel raises his arm and points to a spot outside the window. “I keep them under my bed.”
Ferang looks away. He gets up, reaches the window. Lets his eyes wander over the roofs outside. Disgust. Pity. His face, he thinks, must be a mask of both.
“But I managed to escape. Worn, exhausted, I arrived in Ayodhya. You know, old sport, the only thing we really need to survive is someone who believes in us. And I, here, I met that person. I learned English, I studied philosophy and history, and I was taught the art of loving. Ayodhya has taught me everything I know about the dedication and the lust for power and the delusions of omnipotence that animate the human soul. Then the riots started and I watched in horror the flames and smoke rising from the Pit. I couldn’t watch them die from my ivory tower, so I left my man and stepped into the Pit. The hijra community welcomed me even at a time when they were experiencing the darkest despair, and for the first time in my life I felt truly accepted. That’s why I’m here, right here in this bed. Because I owe it to my people. So that another eleven year old, as I was once, one day won’t have to go through what I had to, to find his place in the world.”
Ferang is breathing heavily. Shaking. Sobbing even, but he can’t cry. Ferang, his face turned towards the corner of the room, unable to cry, feels the eyes of Gabriel brush against his back and then slip away. Gabriel respects his pain. His pain.
“I’m sorry that people have to suffer so much,” Ferang says, his voice breaking. “I’m really sorry.”
“Santhosh needs you. He needs someone who believes in him, who believes that his future can be better than his past. Remember, it’s precisely because we cannot save all those we love that we must help at least those who are closest to us.”
“Gabs, I—”
“If you don’t do it, no one else will.”
“Gabs...” Ferang starts, but stops, unable to continue.
“Hope flourishes best in places that seem to have none.”
Ferang looks up. Looks away. Shakes his head.
Objects in the Mirror Page 23