‘Wow,’ Mia said. ‘She’s a knock-out. Even with those glasses you can see she has the most amazing eyes. I’ve never seen that colour before.’
‘They’re better in person,’ he smiled. ‘She’s so restless, never sits still long enough to be photographed. Maybe a distant ancestor screwed a Viking adrift in the Indian Ocean, and the result was…my mother.’
‘She’s absolutely stunning.’
‘And I?’
‘You, too,’ Mia said, a little surprised. ‘You said at the wedding that she couldn’t travel. Why?’
‘I should have told you before,’ he shrugged. ‘You see, travel is difficult for her. She’s completely blind.’
‘Jesus!’ Mia whispered. ‘I wouldn’t have guessed, looking at those eyes. Who looks after her? How does she manage to run Sharkey’s?’
‘She has good help. Lots of friends.’ He laughed loudly. ‘We’re a sorry pair, aren’t we, a blind mother and a diabetic son? I bet you’re already wanting to escape this fucking hell hole!’
‘No,’ she turned her face towards his. ‘Hey, come on, you musn’t keep saying things like that. Don’t. I love you very much. We’ll make ourselves a wonderful world. It’ll be our world. We’ll build it. I have nothing else.’
‘Baby,’ he drew her against him and held her hard against his chest. ‘Do I deserve you?’
‘You deserve far better,’ she said. The disillusioned painter’s daughter with a crush on a mad swami. Oh, yes, you deserve far better than me.
‘But we’ll have everything, you’ll see,’ he laughed softly. ‘Everything and more. Every fucking thing. Just as soon as I’ve dealt with this hooligan or stalker or terrorist or whatever he is, we’ll have every fucking thing.’
‘You should try getting her to London, Vik.’ Mia’s eyes drifted back to the paintings. ‘There are so many new treatments available.’
He shook his head, ‘Too late. Nothing to be done. Sad,’ – he waved his hands – ‘a great lady she is. You’ll meet her. You’ll meet her when we visit her in Alqueria. We’ll be there soon, I promise. I promise.’
He picked out another painting. A group of people stood in a laughing tableau in front of a low red-roofed building on the beach. Sharkey’s Hotel, Indi, and next to her – Karna. An older, whiter, Karna.
‘Who is this?’ Mia’s voice cracked.
‘That’s my mother’s buddy,’ said Vik. ‘Justin. He’s a doc.’
But the same length of hair. The same beard. The same height. Everything exactly the same, except for the single difference that Justin was white and Karna was dark. A photo and its negative, the same person painted in different colours.
‘That’s your mother’s friend?’
‘Yes, why?’
Dust swirled outside forming hobgoblins of intense evening heat. Cars honked past, pushing currents of smog over the lawn. Evening vendors on their way home yelled their wares: Nose, ear piercing man! The drilling, nailing sounds of new construction crescendoed to a violent finale.
‘He looks like someone I know.’
‘Does he really? Hey, he won’t be happy to hear that. Justin thinks of himself as seriously unique.’
‘He looks like someone from the Purification Journey,’ she blurted out.
Vik frowned, then smiled. ‘Ah…no…I don’t think so.’
‘Someone….’
‘Someone who?’
‘Who I…interviewed once…’
‘Nope,’ Vik shook his head briskly. ‘Justin definitely ain’t someone from any journey.’
She didn’t tell Vik how hard she waited for Karna, sitting under the high ceiling of the bedroom, staring at the painting and wondering if Sanatkumara had passed on her address.
She didn’t tell him that she dreamt of Karna on most nights and that her days in Victoria Villa were becoming a vigil, a countdown to seeing him again.
‘My dad would have loved these paintings. Aren’t there,’ she paused, ‘any photographs of your dad?’
‘Photos?’ he wrinkled his nose. ‘I told you, I never keep photos. Only paintings. I chucked all the photos. I had all the photos copied into paintings as soon as I could afford to. Then,’ he smiled brightly, ‘I tore up the photographs.’
‘So aren’t there any paintings of your father?’
He came around the table, drew her towards him, led her to the window and put his arm around her waist. They stared out towards the jamun which came sweetly towards them at the window. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘that my father died before I was born. He was a soldier. When we go to Goa, you’ll see pictures of him. My mother has them.’
‘What was your father’s name?’
‘Same as mine,’ he said. ‘Same name as me. Vik. Vikram.’
She leant up and kissed him. His lips against hers smelt bittersweet. His creaseless clothes and carefully combed hair were flimsy bulwarks of order against the insulin syringe that kept him alive.
‘My love-in-a-mist,’ his voice resurged with its normal loud energy. ‘My wildflower. You’ll hear all about my family from my mother, drink wine and go swimming in the sea. And I,’ he smiled, ‘will go off in search of the ruffian, the troublemaker or whoever he is. God, I wish I didn’t have to think about that fucking shit.’
‘Do they have any idea who he is?’
‘No,’ Vik shook his head. ‘Justin chased after him to the top of a hill but he apparently just disappeared. They’re very worried. I’m worried. Worried about what he might do next. Perhaps,’ he turned towards her, ‘I should get myself a gun. Would you like that? If I got myself a gun to kill this guy?’
‘Would I like it?’
‘Would it turn you on? If, for example, I got myself a gun and crawled after that ass-hole, stopping only to replenish my insulin like a soldier on a sugar high? I’d be a real macho man if I did that, wouldn’t I?’
‘That’s a weird thought,’ she said after a pause.
He laughed, pulled her hair loose from its clip and arranged it around her face. ‘I’ll have to do something. Seriously. I mean, I’ll have to. I owe it to my mother, to her hotel. Today he’s threatening her, tomorrow, he may turn up here and start hassling us, god knows.’
‘Hassling us?’
‘Hoo! Hoo!’ Vik made ghost sounds and twirled his hands. ‘Who’s that knocking on the door? Open up, it’s me, the terrorist who’s come to get you!’
‘No worries!’ she smiled. ‘I always know what to do in a crisis. I’m a tough cookie.’
‘No, you’re not,’ he said softly. ‘You’re a love-in-a-mist. Anyway, forget it. Nothing will happen here. I’m not worried, we have the guards outside, but still,’ he frowned, ‘you never know. There’s some weird stuff happening in the world.’
I’m a ruffian too, she thought. Kicking my tincan of fantasies along two continents. I’m an amoral hoodlum hiding in your house for my own selfish motives. Sadhus may think of the eternal paradise they are about to attain after their death. I’m a pilgrim who thinks only of the eternal paradise I’m about to attain on earth.
‘You’re lovely, baby. Come, let’s go. Fuck all this shit.’
He organized parties in the garden to entertain her. Minarets of cardboard and cloth reached past the trees. Canopies bloomed under the semal, a pink fountain bursting from the centre. There were fancy-dress parties. Rummy parties. Parties controlled by dictatorial DJs. Parties where a line of saluting elephants welcomed the guests. Parties where an illuminated horse sat in the centre of the decorated tent. Parties where kebabs hung from the ceiling on giant skewers, like a morgue full of cadavers. Parties where the gun-trader’s wife and her lover were caught making out in a BMW. Parties where lurid masks loomed out through dimly lit rooms.
In a lamp-dark study the chairs were stained with sticky hands and smells of embraces rose out of the cushions. The heavy breath of heartbreak…where? In the money plants clambering up the walls or underneath the wooden dragon table which Vik had brought back from Bali? Silhouettes
fell on the bushes. Silhouettes that were permanently attached. Silhouettes with mannequin breasts holding drinks in their hands, with cigarettes burning in their lips.
‘Tell me,’ Mia asked the skinny Miss Universe runner-up. ‘Does Vik have lots of these parties?’
‘Good for you, isn’t it?’ The runner-up’s eyes were wide, ‘Good for you to come here from London and just slip into this world like a princess. Some Indians love NRIs, although I must say I can’t stand them. I just hate NRIs. The demands for mineral water, those cheesy accents. Ugh. You’ve done well. Look at you. Didn’t get a man in England, and now you’re living here like a maharani! All the best Indian men go abroad and come back married to the charlady’s daughter, happy that they’ve found someone with an English accent.’
‘Hey,’ Mia said aggressively. ‘Give it a break, okay? My mother’s from Kolkata and my dad’s from Delhi and was a history teacher in London. And a painter. I’m…’
‘Oh, come on,’ snapped the runner-up. ‘We all know about the kind of life you people live over there in your little ghettoes. All you Asians with your Bollywood obsession. You’re all religious fanatics, you immigrants. We’re not immigrants here. This is our land. We do what we want.’
‘Good for you.’
‘You NRIs always get fooled in India. We can easily fool you. You think you understand, but you don’t. You can’t see anything. You’re blind.’
Mia thought of Mithu’s phone calls from New York which were blissful, delighted at the loss of her daughter. Tiger was doing well. There was so much to see in New York. The bagels and cream cheese were delicious. They might even buy an apartment and settle down permanently. The oil-paint-and-turpentine flat was an orphan now. It was dark, its eyes were closed and it was alone except for the cherry tree. She wasn’t sure what to say.
‘You’re pretty rude, d’you know that?’ inquired Mia.
‘Yes, but I’m also pretty,’ beamed the runner-up. ‘And so would you be if you made just a little effort.’
‘Nobody here is exactly a great beauty,’ Mia smiled back, relieved that friendship had been forged by fire. ‘Not like Vik’s mother.’
‘Ah, Vik’s mother,’ breathed the runner-up, staring at the semal tree. ‘Indira. Indira, the great Indira. Must be hard to have a mother like Indira. By the way,’ she paused, ‘Vik’s really angry. Totally pissed off…’
‘Why?’
‘Why? God, where are you living, yaar? Come on, he’s been working really hard, Moksha’s finally, like, up and running, he gets married and now suddenly his mother lands up with this problem which he has to sort out. She’s blind, she needs protection, all that. Did he tell you? Some guy who’s been making life miserable for his mother and her hotel in Goa. He’s been doing all kinds of things. I told him,’ the runner-up lit a cigarette, ‘to just have him finished off. Once and for all.’
‘Which man?’
‘The guy threatening his mother, of course. Jesus, where the fuck are you from, man? Set a…you know,’ the runner-up shrugged, ‘supari on him. A supari, understand? Guys who kill for money? One of those velahs who hang about near the railway station and can be paid to get rid of people? Organize a fake police encounter. You know, just send some cop to shoot him out. I mean, how dare he threaten Sharkey’s Hotel? Shit, does he know who he’s dealing with? When Vik gets angry,’ the runner-up shuddered, ‘it’s time to watch out.’
‘You can’t just have somebody killed. I don’t think Vik would do that.’ Mia’s eyes had become huge. ‘That would be a mistake, an over-reaction, I would say. I mean, maybe he can just talk to him.’
The runner-up laughed. ‘Oh, come on, yaar. This is not your little immigrant neighbourhood. This is a different strata of society, okay, this is the big league. Big money, big shit. You never know who this guy could be, there could be some kidnapping thing happening, some ransom demand. The last thing Vik needs is to have this on his head now. He’s got tons on his plate already with Moksha.’ The runner-up threw her cigarette into the grass, stamped on it and marched off towards the bar.
The party sighed to an end. The guests swayed to their feet and disappeared past the bowing trees. The runner-up had rapidly become drunk and weaved off into the house. After a while Mia spotted her crawling out from behind a leather sofa with a garland of lilies around her neck. Vik helped her to her feet and half carried her to the bathroom where she threw up and passed out in the guest bedroom, her legs splayed out. He stood over her and grinned at Mia. ‘I’m the protector of all women,’ he said. ‘They feel safe in my house.’
On the four-poster bed, he stroked her tenderly, his insulin pump glancing against her skin. She prowled around him, her mind full of dark fantasies of Karna. When Vik kissed her mouth, she imagined drawing Karna’s face into her stomach. When Vik encircled her belly with his arms, she pushed his hands roughly against her thighs, imagining he was Karna. Vik’s chest was soft and covered with light springy fluff but she imagined it hard and spare. He would be here soon. She had already seen him in this other painting. It wasn’t just a coincidence that Justin looked like Karna. Coincidences were patterns of things to come.
‘Mia…?’ he whispered.
‘Yes?’
‘I had no idea you were so sexy.’
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
‘Wonderful,’ he murmured.
Wonderful? You call me, wonderful? She muttered silent warnings about herself: I am a latent sorceress biding my time, pretending delight in your tender ministrations that will never satisfy me. One day, I will rear up from the bathtub and drown you in sensual rage. All I wish to do is watch the sun fall in different ways against Karna’s white clothes. All I want is to go with Karna to the Kumbh Mela and see for myself that India’s contribution to world civilization is the idea that the naked human body is not a pornographic product but an ascetic ideal.
The next morning over a breakfast of fruit and dosas, Mia said that she had been in Delhi for two months and all she had done was go to parties at night and sleep all day while Vik was at work. Perhaps she should try and find a job of some kind? Some freelance work for a channel? Nothing doing, said Vik, nothing until they had been to Alqueria. He still hadn’t decided when they would go. There were some schedules to be met and a couple of trips planned. Once he was able to make sure he had enough time, they would go and visit Indi, who, he said, was waiting to welcome Mia. And he would find out who this weirdo was who was harassing his mother and her friend. In the meantime, why didn’t she just make herself at home, wander around the city, meet the runner-up and the wordless wife for lunch, walk in the lawn, do whatever she wanted? It was far too hot to go anywhere in the afternoon and in the evenings, of course, he would take her out. Summer’s a pretty time, she should see the amaltas and gulmohar ablaze in yellow and orange in the streets.
She drifted through the days. Waking to hear Vik’s presence in the bathroom, to smell his Azarro and his damp towels and see his insulin pump neatly disappear into his waistband, turning over the past six months in her head. She flipped through news channels desultorily, following debates on the Kargil war and Sonia Gandhi’s leadership of the Congress. She ate lonely lunches served by the coiffeured chef, read, walked in the garden and stared at the semal tree. She was waiting. A waiting in the air and a waiting inside her. The semal tree seemed to burst with words. There was so much she didn’t know, so much about Victoria Villa that was hidden from her. She positioned herself on the lawn, twisting her head so that the house looked like the great white jaw of a shark breaking out of a blue-green sea of grass.
The Delhi summer was a carnival of different types of heat: damp in the mornings, crackling dry in the afternoons, fever-hot in the evenings as if constantly running a temperature of a 102. The road outside Victoria Villa became a molten river of tarmac. She watched the floors of the house being swept, then swabbed, watched the pistachio marble flooring spin away transparently, marvelling at how instantaneously the water dried. She bathed
with Karma shower gel, washed her hair with Tantra shampoo, then lay under the ceiling fan on the four-poster bed, letting the towellike air carry away the moisture from her body in minutes.
Where could Karna have gone? What mission was so urgent that he could deny the eerie recognition between them and just leave? And how could Sanatkumara not have even known his name? Had he given her a false name and just stormed off in his crazy way?
Vik had had a comfortable life. His home, his successful business and his psychedelic friends. Karna had nothing. He probably smoked ganja by the banks of the river, lived among the poorest and dressed like a blue-painted Krishna. But Vik’s India made her anxious with its many lost, solipsistic souls perched on glasses brimful with champagne. Would Vik ever call her Maya? Probably not. He would always want to see her as the mini-skirted Mia. Hollywood heroine Mia.
She yearned instead for Anand’s India, for Karna’s India. Running off into wheat fields in search of a Mughal descendant. Jumping off an old steam train to sit with banjaras, scribbling notes on the back of cigarette packs. Going to the Kumbh Mela. Perhaps when Anand drowned in the river he imagined he was walking into the Ganga for a dip before being impolitely swallowed up by the freezing Thames. Perhaps like the Dasanami Nagas, he had calculated that this was the right astrological moment of the Kumbh bath. When they had found his body, his expression had been serene.
One afternoon, sandwiched between the runner-up and the construction magnate at one of Vik’s favourite lunchtime restaurants, Mia looked out of the windows to see a fantastic sight. The sky had begun to darken. Brown swathes of burning dust were rising. Stilt-walkers of hot earth were teetering past, pursued by a gleeful wind. People shouted for cover as the stilt-walkers went wafting past like participants in a summer parade. After the parade, came the grand finale, a flourish of rain. Muddy drops at first, then slicing slivers of freshness, slanted against the breeze. Lightning illuminated treetops in flashing chiaroscuro.
‘Wow!’ said Mia. ‘Look at that.’
Blind Faith Page 11