Blind Faith

by Sagarika Ghose

  ‘ Here?’ his voice was hurried. ‘Right here? Nobody I can see for the moment. No,’ he looked around, ‘there’s nobody here. No Phantom Listener.’

  ‘ He’s near me. Standing near me. And looking.’

  ‘ It’s only me,’ said Justin becoming increasingly troubled. ‘The only one who’s always standing near you is me…’

  The scraping on the roof. The chemical odour. That long breathy yawn. Gliding, wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded…But who is that on the other side of you?

  ‘ We’ve waited long enough,’ said Justin after a pause. ‘We should tell the police. This may not be just a prank. Probably someone trying to push us out. I’ll go down to the Fontainhas station.’

  ‘ I don’t like you at all,’ said Indi playfully, talking musically to the Phantom Listener. ‘You are a foul spirit of some kind. I can sense you. I don’t like you,’ she sang.

  ‘ Indi!’ Justin shook her shoulders. ‘Knock it off!’

  ‘ You smell,’ sang Indi again. ‘Of nail-polish remover or gum. I can’t quite make out. But you smell.’

  ‘ Jesus,’ said Justin. ‘I have to tell the cops.’

  4

  LONDON

  Tiger, Mithu’s astrologer-fiancé, worked in ABN Amro by day and charted the stars by night. Tiger’s parents were from Leeds, his grandparents from Punjab and he was an amateur astrologer. After Anand’s death, Mithu had visited him so persistently to ask if there was a second marriage in her stars, that he himself proposed.

  His nickname was Tiger because of the two tiger skins he possessed, proudly displayed in his Marylebone Road flat. Tiger was in a hurry to marry the newly luscious Mithu and whisk her away to New York because an ascendant Jupiter had foretold that she would bring him luck in his new job. But he also knew that Mithu had vowed not to marry him unless Mia married first. So he found a prospective husband for Mia as fast as the horoscopes would permit.

  The next morning, as Mia gulped her coffee with Mithu gazing at her in resigned bewilderment, the telephone rang.

  ‘Mithu?’ It was Tiger.

  ‘Yes, it is I.’ Mithu’s father had been a member of the Kolkata Shakespeare Club and she had been brought up to always say, ‘It is I’ instead of ‘It’s me’.

  ‘A boy.’

  ‘A boy?’ Mithu touched her forehead in grudging thanks to a hitherto aloof pantheon.

  ‘Yes,’ cried Tiger.

  ‘For Mia?’

  ‘Then for who, you?’

  ‘But will she agree?’ Detachment was the best principle in such times. Because the greatest of joys existed cheek by jowl with the severest of catastrophes and it was best not to get carried away by momentary happinesses. ‘She hasn’t agreed before.’

  On previous occasions Mia had failed to turn up for meetings, devising arguments against arranged marriages and citing various cases where Indian brides had been abandoned or murdered by British Asian men.

  ‘Talk to her,’ urged Tiger. ‘Talk to her.’

  ‘How did you find the boy?’ Mithu asked. ‘How did you find the boy so suddenly?’

  ‘I got his reference,’ chuckled Tiger, ‘from Mars. Mars. Which is at the moment in transit to Venus. It told me that he is in London in connection with his business. He’s in business. Moksha Herbals. Selling herbal make-up to film studios as well as to top-notch places. He sells to all the major Mumbai film studios. Also to Body Shop, Selfridges – all stock his stuff. About fifteen outlets all over the world. Starting a retail at Heathrow as well. He’s been here for a whole year. I’ve been talking to him. He’s perfect, believe me. Perfect. Doing very well. Giving stiff competition to Kama Sutra and Lush. What a line he has. Nirvana massage oil, Ahimsa paint, Vedic eyeliner.’

  ‘Sounds niche,’ said Mithu in a moment of marketing doubt.

  ‘Niche?’ exclaimed Tiger. ‘What do you mean niche? Totally mainstream. How d’you think Max Factor built the business in the Twenties? By supplying to film studios only then to the general public. High returns. And,’ Tiger paused dramatically, ‘only thiry-five.’

  ‘And is he agreeable to this? Does he know?’

  ‘He knows everything,’ chuckled Tiger again, mysteriously this time. ‘Knows how sad she is after Anand’s…passing. That moving back with you isn’t working…knows that she mopes around all day. He knows.’

  ‘He knows? What do you mean he knows? How does he know?’

  ‘Simple,’ Tiger chuckled again, even more mysteriously. ‘The stars told him. He saw it. The stars are good, Mithu, the time is good.’

  When Anand had been alive Tiger had crept about meekly with his digests, tarot cards and charts locked in his briefcase, intimidated by Anand’s philosophical paintings. Now he was unabashed about planetary explanations for everything – from sour milk to delayed trains.

  ‘He’s not like the normal types, darling,’ said Tiger. ‘He’s not going to lock her up in the house and make her cook for his mother all day. College education, fully from America. Wharton School. A-me-ri-ca. No hitting, beating, no dowry,’ Tiger repeated. ‘And best of all, no clothes. No problem with clothes. Any clothes. Jeans. Strap tops. Only thing is’ – Tiger paused – ‘India-based. She’ll have to’ – Tiger coughed – ‘go there.’

  ‘Oh no!’ lamented Mithu. ‘Why India? Why not Singapore or Hong Kong?’

  ‘Hey, Mithu memsahib,’ cried Tiger. ‘Don’t do chik chik like a fool. He has to live in India because that’s where the suppliers are, that’s where the laboratories are and the biggest buyers are. All the big film production companies. Raw materials. Herbs, aloe vera, eucalyptus oil, all that wonderful stuff. Hey, d’you know the fortune there is these days in aloe vera? Aloe vera is the new gold, lady. Aloe vera is the one stock I want to buy. And think of it. Going out: no problem. Working and having a career: no problem. Parties: no problem. Dowry: no problem. If all this is no problem, then what’s the problem with India?’

  ‘But why has he not found a girl for so long?’ demanded Mithu. ‘If parties are no problem?’

  ‘Busy,’ reasoned Tiger. ‘Even his mother doesn’t live with him. She lives in Goa where she owns a hotel. Beach hotel. Mother owns a big beach hotel. Really top-end stuff. It’s called Sharkey’s. Very sort of old-world classy, know what I mean? Shabby sophistication. I’ve seen the pictures.’

  ‘Hotel?’ Mithu frowned suspiciously. ‘In Goa? There’s a lot of drug taking in those places.’

  ‘Mithu, Mithu,’ Tiger moaned. ‘You people are all getting left behind. They are more upper class than your entire family put together. Mother was a civil servant, understand? IAS officer! Even his grandfather was an IAS officer and his dad was in the army. What more d’you want? He got happy when I said Mia’s dad was also dead. He said they’d have dead dads in common.’

  Mithu put the phone down and stared accusingly at Mia.

  ‘There is a chance,’ said Mia, placing her coffee cup on the table, ‘that the Indian Max Factor, may not like me. I may not be pretty enough. My skin may not be polished enough. Or I may not like him. It may not work out.’

  ‘Work out?’ cried Mithu. ‘What do you mean, work out? What is there to marriage but more and more workout?’

  ‘What if he kills me in a fit of rage? Face down in a village well?’

  ‘What nonsense!’ yelled Mithu. ‘What sort of animals d’you think Indian men are? Don’t make up these fancy stories about India just to make yourself feel good. That Indians are abnormal and only the British are normal. That Indians kill wives. Don’t be an Orientalist!’

  The great Edward Said, author of that heartfelt manifesto Orientalism, had been Mithu’s ally in many a household battle with Anand. Her understanding of the book was rough but passionate and the word always shut Anand up and made him introspective about his paintings.

  ‘Kills you!’ she shouted again, triumphant at Mia’s silence. ‘Isn’t that at least better than moping about and staring at me all day?’

  ‘I’m not staring at you!’ Mi
a cried.

  ‘Then stop making faces at me. Always looking and judging and god knows what else. Boka mey. He may be very nice. And still you keep staring at me. Punishing me with your aging face!’ Not even her worst enemy would say my daughter had an aging face, thought Mithu, the instant she had said it but people said funny things when they sensed they were on the threshold of a breakthrough.

  ‘Fine, Ma,’ snapped Mia. ‘If that’s how you feel, I’ll meet him. I’ll meet him and marry him and go away to India so you can be rid of me forever.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘I’ll do it. I don’t care. You won’t have to see my aging face again!’

  ‘I’ll fix it for the evening, Goldie,’ Mithu’s voice trumpeted after her as Mia ran out of the flat, ‘This time it’ll work out. I’m getting the feeling. Aamar chotto Shona!’

  She felt light on her feet on her way to the tube. She had jumped off her high wall of grief and entered a charmed zone where astonishing things were happening. Her father had sent her his dream, she had met his muse who had turned out to be a renunciant monk. Now her mother was pulling her into her own dreams of a wedding and she was walking in, as if she too wanted to enter the charmed circle where the unexpected took place, and anticipation took flight.

  Drs Rosenthal and Silver wouldn’t approve. They would diagnose that she was experiencing a euphoric high which was only a prelude to a dark low; that her mind was racing ahead hyperactively and she was seeing connections where there were none. She was too light-headed to care, absurdly thrilled at this forthcoming proposal of marriage.

  She spent the morning losing things, forgetting her mobile phone and drifting away from conversations. At lunchtime, she went down to Speaker’s Corner to see Karna. A largish crowd had gathered and was listening with shifting attention to the red-haired leader’s speech. Tourist cameras flashed and a policeman strolled around. Karna smiled and waved at her.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m glad to see you again.’

  ‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘I’m very happy to see you again, too.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, as they walked to their familiar bench, ‘about your name.’

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Yes, what is it? You haven’t yet told me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I should have told you. My name is Mia. Mia Bhagat. My parents are both from India. I was born and raised here in London.’

  ‘Mia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t say Mia. Say Maya. Maya. Mia is a pretty Hollywood heroine. But Maya is much more profound. Maya is god’s dream.’

  ‘Maya is god’s dream?’

  ‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Maya is god’s dream.’

  To my dearest little Maya, love from Papa. Mia was a Hollywood heroine, but Maya? Maya was god’s dream.

  How could Karna know Anand’s name for her? His black eyes were sharp but without clues. Something her father and he had perhaps planned when they had met in secret somewhere? Anand had painted the festival painting when he had visited the last Kumbh Mela in ‘89, over a decade ago. She had been sixteen at the time and vividly recalled his excitement. Karna looked as if he was in his mid to late thirties, he would have been in his early twenties, perhaps, when he met Anand. Or perhaps Anand had seen one of the Brothers from the Purification Journey. But how would he know about her name?

  ‘And Karna? What does Karna mean?’

  ‘Don’t you know the story of Karna from the Mahabharat?’

  Mia shook her head.

  ‘Karna,’ he said again, ‘never got a chance to take his revenge.’

  ‘Revenge? Against whom?’

  He grinned at her. ‘The mythological Karna didn’t get his revenge, but I will. Read the story, Maya.’

  She remembered visiting the Angkor temples in Cambodia, pedalling after her father down the lily-lined streets of Siem Reap, thinking how big and full of goodness was his multi-religious world, his world of Jesus, Kashi Vishwanath and Mecca. Goodness sustained by booze but bursting with high spirits and the belief that everyone could be a character in a painting.

  That evening, when Vik appeared at the door, she felt her legs near her ears and her arms in the air in a silent cartwheel. Vik looked like a visiting sultan. Emperor Jehangir, beautifully dressed, with a wide smile. He was tall and athletic with pale skin, wavy brown hair and brown eyes. He bounced on his feet as he walked in, pumped her hand hard and said hello in an energetic voice. She had been expecting to be crushingly disappointed by her arranged match. She was expecting the businessman of Moksha Herbals to be shrewd and pot-bellied. Instead, she found herself looking at someone who must, judging from what she had seen of them, be one of India’s handsomest men. Tiger and Mithu hadn’t shoved her into the arms of a potential wife-killer. Instead they had rustled up an emperor.

  A tide of tears began in her stomach. Ashamed and guilty tears. Poor Mithu. Poor Ma with her orange hair, standing, standing for many hopeful years, behind a counter with a sign saying ‘Daughter for Sale’. Mithu wasn’t mean. She was frail and human and out of her ineffectual embrace she had produced a Mughal prince for her only daughter. The tide of tears came crashing out of her eyes and flattened itself against her cheeks.

  Tears came pouring out of Mithu’s eyes too. She stood behind the rosy sofa, framed by the grimacing wall, humiliated all her life, by her own daughter, who had always misjudged her, always cast her as cruel, never believed she was capable of caring. Mithu and Mia wept in silent unison for a few seconds, while Vik politely looked away, until mother and daughter wiped their eyes embarrassedly and rushed to fetch him tea, asking about how he was enjoying his visit to London. Mia began a flustered harangue on the Kargil war and how, in spite of all the hope generated after the Indian prime minister’s bus journey to Lahore, India and Pakistan had still gone to war for a fourth time.

  Termination before commencement, she thought. He thinks Ma and I are pathetic ladies eking out a desolate existence in a corner of London with him as the only ray of hope from the outside world. He’ll get it over quickly and be gone forever.

  But as they walked to the Eagle And Flag she felt his eyes on her in intimate appraisal. As if he had liked her transition from babyish blubbering to outrage at the India–Pakistan deadlock. Winter lights bloomed behind every bush as they walked. Elms rustled with a welcoming breeze and formed a leafy cathedral above their heads, enticing them to enter and walk far.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s just that my mother and I were in the middle of one of our arguments. She can be the typical Indian mother sometimes. And I realize that you’ve been dragged here to see me. It’s just pathetic, this whole arranged…thing.’

  Vik laughed. ‘Didn’t expect my presence to bring on so many tears, I must confess.’

  ‘I’m really sorry.’ She could have hugged him for his generosity. ‘You must think we’re a weird pair. God, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Not a worry in the world,’ he smiled. ‘I don’t think you’re weird at all. I think you’re lovely. But, hey, I’d like to make you feel better. I’m not so bad.’

  How easily he had said it. How easily he had forgiven her and said that she was lovely. He was Jehangir, a prince of forgiveness.

  ‘No, but it was awful the way we both started whimpering when you came in…I mean, you must’ve been gobsmacked by the way we just fell apart.’

  Vik held her shoulders and turned her towards him. ‘Stop apologizing. It doesn’t matter. Now,’ he smiled again, ‘aren’t you going to show me your city? I love it. Beautiful but also a little sleazy. Like Marlene Dietrich.’

  She considered the parallel between city and movie star, concluded that it was apt and literary, and rushed into a tremulous confession: ‘It’s so very nice of you to come. So very very nice of you.’

  ‘Very nice of you too,’ he said mock-formally. He spoke with American-educated care. His sentences were measured and clearly enunciated.
By contrast, her voice had become breathless. Her sentences broke off before they were completed, because these days she had become anxious to concentrate on the vibes that existed beyond spoken words.

  ‘Anyway, you don’t have to feel as if you’re under any obligation,’ she found herself insisting. ‘I apologize. I’m really sorry. We could just grab a quick pint and be done with it. Tiger must have said that you have to meet me, because of their own plans, and forced you to see me. They want to get married and go off to New York, that’s why they…’

  ‘Relax, Mia.’ His voice was soft. ‘Don’t worry. I love being here. It’s a pleasure. Quick pint? No way. I mean, not just a beer. Now that we’re here, let’s, you know, hang out.’

  ‘I’ve almost given up on marriage, you know,’ Mia explained. ‘One of my friends from university recently saved enough money to visit the Serengeti National Park after an email alert that the park wardens there were single and good looking. But then my friend returned after a few days with the news that the email had been a hoax and even the Serengeti National Park wardens were all married.’

  He laughed, putting his arms around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. ‘You know, I have to say that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.’

  The week slid into calm schizophrenia.

  The absorption of unnatural circumstances is achieved easily by the depressed imagination noted Rosenthal and Silver.

  At lunchtime she would go to the Purification Journey rally to talk to Karna. They would walk to their bench and she would listen bemusedly about a life away from money, the rewards of simple living and his belief in the Mother Woman. In the evening, she would go out with Vik and listen to his business plans and how well Moksha Herbals was doing, what an inspired idea it had been, how all the big studios in Mumbai were turning to organic make-up, how grinders of leaves and crushers of spices from the interiors of Bengal and Kerala had been given access to markets. He told her how inspired he had been by the story of Max Factor’s invention of pancake which had transformed screen make-up and taken women all over the world by storm. He hoped for a similar discovery in his labs sometime and then there would be no limits on Moksha Herbals.