The Bell-Boy

by James Hamilton-Paterson

  Apparently the local name translated as ‘good night’, for when fully ripe they were the purple of a tropic dusk. The name had a jocular import, too, for the fruit’s many matchhead-sized seeds were violently poisonous and, coated as they were with jelly, slipped down all too easily with the flesh.

  This flesh was indeed unimpressive-looking, with something of the bland appearance of tinned pears; but in trying to describe its flavour one approached the farewell-fruit’s central mystery. This was, that it had no flavour whatsover – or at least, no two people could agree on it. Each tasted something different and only the most prosaic (such as writers of travel guides and cookery books) tried likening it to the marriage of a strawberry and a cherry, or passion-fruit with overtones of peach.

  Generations of writers and travellers, among them Lafcadio Hearn, had left accounts of the glories of this fruit, often reaching modest heights of lyricism. But according to many thoughtful gastronomes the most accurate description of all was by the National Poet, Bard-Professor Stiftu. In one of his Essays of a Hermit he had written:

  To eat a farewell-fruit is to leap willingly into the ambush of one’s past. For the taste is of childhood, of our private history; and that is why it cannot be compared to any other thing. Children don’t like it because to them it is without flavour, even nauseating. It is an adult taste and as we grow older the search [for it] takes on more and more the nature of a risky pilgrimage … In each fruit are tears and laughter, light and shade, the energy of sunlight and tropical ennui. And always behind it the threat of death: the golden pips which bring oblivion.

  This fanciful exposition was not, according to the pamphlet, to everybody’s taste, any more than the fruit itself. It seemed that while they were listening to their guide and reading these leaflets they had been carried along by the flow of people and were now far away from the stall. They found themselves in an alley hung with low awnings which nearly met in the middle. Tessa and Zoe were made suddenly aware of how much taller they were than most Malombans. They stooped beneath these tarry baldachins and drew into their lungs a boiling reek of spice and aromatics.

  ‘Cinnamon, cloves, cardamom,’ Tessa began listing appreciatively. ‘We must be getting close.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ Tominy Bundash called back, ‘we have entered the spice markets. And this’ – he dived down a passage – ‘is the street of essences.’ His voice hung in the air like dust and when Tessa and Zoe turned the corner he was at first nowhere to be seen. They were in a tiny lane lined with dark booths from whose depths rolled perfumes to make their heads swim. The heat was immense, and into it distillates and vapours leached and seeped from a thousand vials and jars, bundles of herbs and thuriferous twigs. A brace of dried bats hung from a string in one doorway, a plywood tub of smoked sea-horses stood in another. Within each hovel they glimpsed shelving with rows of bottles in which sullen oils smouldered. ‘Here, here, madams,’ and following the voice they came on their guide inside one of these stores talking to a plump oriental wearing what looked like a melted fez whose limp felt ballooned slightly above his ears.

  ‘Come in, come in, ladies!’ cried this man in a high voice. ‘I am Mr Mokpin. Ong Mokpin of Divine Essence at your services.’

  He seated them hospitably on two upturned barrels cushioned with squabs made of beige and stuffed with hay. Mr Bundash perched behind them on a sack.

  ‘Oh deary me, this heat,’ said Mr Mokpin. ‘First, refreshment.’ He tinkled a bell and a child ran up with a brass tray in one hand and a circlet of straw in the other. ‘No,’ he said to his guests, holding up his hand although neither had made to speak, ‘permit me to order. I can see right away that we wouldn’t be content with the usual gassy rubbish. Mops and Bolly and Coca-Cola are not for us. An infusion, perhaps? Something cooling to clear both brow and blood? I’m wondering about a blend of tansy and mulva flowers, but even as I wonder I’m thinking no, our guests are maybe still unused to our homeothermal practice of cooling ourselves with hot drinks. Ah, I have it.’ He addressed the child in a few abrupt phrases and it vanished.

  Tessa, already excited by Mr Mokpin’s herbal precision, spent the short interim looking about her at his shop. The proprietor followed her evident interest with a smile of pleasure. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she thought she had never seen so many bottles. The shelves around the walls supported a positive library of oils and essences. Zoe meanwhile was examining a glass jar which held what looked like small lumps of rock under an inch or two of yellowish oil.

  ‘What are these?’ she asked.

  ‘Those, young lady, are bezoar. Do you know what bezoar is? No? It’s a stone which forms in the stomach of a goat. Ground up, it’s a wonderful antidote to all kinds of poison. I can tell you that in the old days the kings of this country always carried a few grains of bezoar powder in the gold heads of their wands of office and never went anywhere without them. Of course we’re talking of a period in our history which was very troublous and marked by assassinations and conspiracies of all kinds. I doubt if our beloved present King bothers taking bezoar about with him, but here in Malomba there are those who still swear by it. Ah!’

  This interjection signalled the return of the child, brass tray balanced on the little circlet of straw on his head. The tray held four glasses and a tin pitcher. Ong Mokpin gave him some coins and he scampered off. Then he poured a light blue liquid into each glass, watching the expression on his guests’ faces with some amusement.

  ‘Now, ladies, tell me the truth. You’d never seen a blue drink before, no? We call it masan-masan, which means “quick-quick”, because it acts so fast. Thirst simply melts away.’ He sipped at his own glass as if to reassure them.

  The liquid, although cool, was by no means chilled; yet its effect was to produce a pleasant freezing sensation in the mouth which at once spread to all parts of the body.

  ‘It’s a mixture,’ said Mr Mokpin to forestall the obvious question. ‘It’s basically juice from the flowers of our belfry palm which you may have seen. Heavy clusters of violet bells? Those ones. Although in fact the blue colour of masan-masan comes from the empyrean crocus which grows in our forests here. You like it? You’re contented?’

  ‘We’re in bliss,’ Tessa told him happily. ‘It’s quite delicious.’ She turned and smiled at Mr Bundash on his sack, so that mournful gentleman should not feel forgotten. ‘I’m more than ever grateful to our friend for bringing us here. Otherwise we would never have found it.’

  ‘I doubt that, Mrs Hemony. Sooner or later the right people usually seem to end up at Divine Essence.’

  She was at first disconcerted by his casual use of her name. That quizzical gaze from beneath the doughy fez irritated her fleetingly. ‘Oh, I suppose our guide must have told you just now who we were.’

  ‘On the contrary. If I remember rightly, he said, “I’ve brought you some visitors of remunerative possibility, respected Ong.” Mr Bundash habitually talks like that because he’s a Moslem. I’m afraid I tend to be more brisk because I’m a businessman … No, I knew who you were because of course I had received a communication about you.’

  ‘A communication? From whom?’

  ‘You can’t guess? Do you think you can drop from his sight so easily, above all in Malomba?’

  ‘The Teacher,’ she said. ‘What a fool I am. Of course. Oh, isn’t that just like the Master, Zo? He knows everything, thinks of everything.’ Abruptly, feeling they were so cared for although so far from home brought a rush of tears to her eyes. ‘Oh, divine. It just flows and flows. There’s no end to it, is there?’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Ong Mopkin. ‘At any rate he told me to expect you, described you and your lovely young daughter and said you were staying at the Golden Fortune Hotel. I myself left a message for you there.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Tessa. ‘I’m afraid we’re at the Nirvana. The Golden Fortune has been burnt down.’

  ‘You surely are misinformed, Mrs Hemony?’ Only hours ago Mr Mopkin had been ly
ing on a vinyl couch on the top floor of the Golden Fortune, being assisted in his recovery from a sauna by two ten-year-old Chinese girls with tiny, fluttery hands.

  ‘I thought Lucky said …?’ She looked for confirmation at Zoe. ‘I suppose he made a mistake. Anyway, bliss. It doesn’t matter. Here we are, as you can see. Not striving, not grasping, but itching to know what you’ve got in all these bottles.’

  ‘To business then.’

  It seemed to Zoe they spent hours in that stuffy room while her mother gave little cries and made lists. Certainly Ong Mopkin appeared learned. Latin phrases mingled with strange native names as stopper after stopper was eased and the essence assayed. After a time she became drowsy with the heat and fumes and voices and longed to be somewhere sharper and higher. She half-dreamed of the days she had spent with Ed in the thin air of Valcognano, talking of not wholly dissimilar things but among the sloping terraces of the Apuan Alps while he paid her court. Why did she think of that now? It came to her suddenly that there was something about this podgy oriental which reminded her of Ed. It was maybe the mixture of languor and beadiness, of a man with each of his feet in a different world who had constantly to shift his weight from one to the other and ended up hovering in a slightly sinister way.

  ‘Vis medicatrix Naturae,’ Mr Mopkin was saying to her mother. ‘And we know how powerful it is, don’t we? Now take this, for example. Melilotus mortionis officinalis is its name, from the great herbalist who discovered it, Balbus Mortion. A very old man now, of course. Smell. An entirely new clover he found in this country growing only in Saramu Province. A most powerful emmenagogue, better even than fennel and rosemary. I see a big, big market for this. I’m also wondering whether you should get in touch with Mortion himself about a range of Turkish essences? He lives in Istanbul and although he is retired now … Yes, you should write him down. His first name is Balbus. Now, as to export and regular orders, I can undertake to supply …’

  Half an hour later he was saying, ‘I truly believe we have several products here which are quite unknown in the West and which could become prodigious sellers. But if I had to choose one it would be this, Mrs Hemony. Karesh oil.’ The pudding-like fez nodded several times. ‘Of course we all know about the powers of auto-suggestion. But Karesh oil is truly a potent aphrodisiac for certain people.’ A peculiar scent drifted into the room.

  ‘Oh,’ Tessa cried, ‘I’ve smelt that before. Here in Malomba. Very recently.’

  ‘Perfectly possible. Karesh is a common vine here. It grows everywhere. The flowers smell like this, except of course the oil is immensely concentrated. Actually it takes one hundred and ninety pounds of flowers to make a single ounce.’

  Zoe also thought she recognised the smell. Was it back at the hotel? Instead of Ed she found herself thinking of Lucky, since smells had that strange power of abruptly banishing an image and replacing it with something quite else. He had a nice aura. As bell-boys went he was really rather a handsome little brat. Well, perhaps not that little; more or less her own age, although his voice wasn’t very low yet. He undoubtedly had lovely long eyelashes.

  ‘Packaging … Shipping … Pure Light Products …’

  At last it was over and Zoe gently woke their guide who was slumped on his sack. Mr Bundash gave a squeak and brushed waking tears from his eyes. ‘Oh dear. Terrifying dreams, young madam,’ he murmured.

  It was now long past midday and by the time he had led them back out of the labyrinth of the Wednesday Market Tessa and Zoe thought he looked so weary they insisted he should have lunch with them. Out of deference they ate in a Moslem restaurant. Plates of fluffy rice and delicately spiced pulses restored them although the food, coming on top of the morning’s heat and scents, made Zoe still drowsier. She thought of Lucky again and wondered what girls of her own age did in Malomba. Suddenly she felt the urge to get away from her mother for a bit, to be a little wild. As they left the restaurant she was full of sleepy yearnings for mild rebellion, and had slouched maybe half a mile beneath the blows of the sun before she was aware they had stopped and that her attention had been caught.

  ‘The place,’ Mr Bundash was saying, ‘has a thoroughly evil reputation, I regret to tell you.’ He was indicating something called the Punk Panther, which was possibly a bar or a restaurant or a night club or all three. It was painted black, including the window panes. It appeared quite shut at the moment and not a sound came from within. A black cat dozed on its threshold as if equably waiting; it wore a tiny brass ring in one ear. ‘They opened it about three years ago to take commercial advantage of the sudden increase in tourism. It quickly became known far and wide as a focus for immorality and drug-taking. A certain misguided tourist handbook – it only takes one! – saw fit to mention that there are particular substances, plants and so on, growing in the forests hereabouts which have unfortunate hallucinogenic properties. Among these, I am informed, are certain of the species amanita and psilocybe. Being a local product they are of course exceedingly cheap.

  ‘You may imagine the rest for yourselves, madams. By word of mouth the notoriety of this establishment quickly spread, inevitably attracting what one is forced to call “the hippy element” as distinct from the spiritual seekers to which Malomba has long been accustomed and which it still welcomes with open arms. Woe to this city!’ cried Mr Bundash mournfully, as might any official guide on seeing his home town degenerate. At the same time he kept a covert eye on Zoe; since he was paid a commission by The Punk Panther’s management for any custom he might steer their way. She struck him as evincing a curiosity whose offhandedness was surely the result of her mother’s standing right beside her. ‘All-night dancing,’ he added gloomily. ‘Loud music. Cheap hamburgers.’ He shook his head.

  When mother and daughter finally reached the hotel they retired at once to darkened rooms.

  Laki was crossing the Nirvana’s back-yard in the remains of twilight. His tuneless whistle told of a pleasant sundownish feeling of having spent the day well. It was largely drowned by the clarions, drums, gongs and wails with which the city’s religious greeted the night. As he walked he bounced an empty plastic gallon container on alternate knees. Being off duty, he had changed out of his white cotton uniform and was wearing dark shorts and T-shirt better suited to stealth and minor villainy. Over one shoulder was slung a small bag. He bonged the container off the goat’s rump as he passed it and faded among the tattered banana plants. These leaned their juicy boles drunkenly on the fringes of the tiny patch of land which Mr Muffy had not yet sold to the Bank of the Divine Lotus. Beyond them lay a fence of vertical stakes marking the beginning of the Redemptorist Fathers’ garden.

  Reaching this Laki pulled out a loose stake, stood it aside and squeezed through the gap. The territory on the other side felt immediately different, not merely because it was forbidden but because it was so lush. At once he was in near-jungle, a forty-yard belt of which separated him from the nearest tongue of deer-cropped grass. He and Raju had once taken pains to approach the toddy palms by varied routes, but their daily undetected journeys had made them careless and between them they had worn a distinct trail. Arriving at the right tree, Laki took from the bag his curved knife which he stuck through his belt, as well as a short length of stout rope. He tied the container to his belt by its handle, stepped out of his rubber slippers, flung the rope around the trunk and began to climb with a hopping motion, knees sticking out at froglike angles on either side.

  This method of climbing a palm was hard work and the rope wound about his hands hurt. Had this been a legitimate enterprise he would long ago have hacked hand-and footholds into the fibrous wood, but even Raju – whose age was against him for climbing trees after a night’s sitting behind the hotel desk – had vetoed this in favour of discretion. As a matter of fact it was a source of pride and pleasure to them both that they should be able to practise their country-boy skills inside the city boundaries.

  He reached the top of the palm with early moonlight glinting dully on the k
nifeblade and swung himself up into thick fronds, panting slightly and squatting down to rest. Between his feet jutted the decapitated stalk of the tree’s flower, its bleeding end enclosed by a bamboo cylinder. He unhitched this and, finding a fragment of mosquito netting stashed in a cleft, strained the contents of the bamboo into his plastic container. There seemed to be about a quart of the liquid, an excellent haul. He cut a sliver off the end of the stalk as precisely as a chef slicing cucumber, for the stump tended to heal itself during the day. Having replaced the bamboo, he pushed the knife back in his belt and returned to earth. The entire operation had taken four minutes and in that time true night had fallen. He shouldered his bag and retraced his steps for ten yards but then struck off at a tangent, emerging beneath the cloud-tree.

  Nearly opposite, across a strip of grass and amid a whirl of fireflies, stood the Fathers’ ornamental pagoda. In front lay the hump of the miniature stone bridge and a black meander of streamlet. The pagoda glimmered white against the vegetation like a chess piece. Laki had little doubt he was unobserved. At this time, he knew, the Fathers would be sitting down to dinner in their bungalow, sparks of whose lights could occasionally be glimpsed seventy yards off through the leaves. Nonetheless, it was not unknown for one of them to go for a stroll, so rather than walk boldly across the lawn he chose to sidle along the edge of the trees to the bridge and flit across it. Now if he stood with his back to the pagoda, his view was of the upper stories of the Hotel Nirvana as they rose above the foliage. Since so few of its rooms were presently occupied it was mainly a dark bulk with here or there a yellow light. One of these might have marked Mrs Hemony’s room but the beautiful Zoe’s, overlooking the roof of the BDL next door, remained invisible. He sighed but took heart from his own rooftop domain, clearly outlined against an opalescent drift of the Milky Way.