Perhaps my entry into the room, the fall of my feet, had disturbed the static air inside or I had brought some winter air with me through the doors that had so far remained closed because the birds and the fishes began to move in slow circles above my head, casting shadows on the walls and the ceiling, in and out, between the stars. This was meant to entertain a child, these fishes and birds. And as I stood there, in the centre of the room, underneath my wife’s handmade heaven for our baby, I saw, one by one, the objects lying there, all kept with love and hope, and not one of any use for Ithim. For example:
In one corner of the room was a baby cot, white in colour, with handrails that Ithim would, could never use. He had no arms.
Next to the cot, on the floor, was a play mat for the baby to crawl on, which Ithim could never do. He had no knees.
There were rattles for him to grasp. He had no fingers.
There were a range of stuffed toys for him to hold, chew, walk, play with. Of no use at all.
There was a kangaroo, a mouse, a duck, a fish, a bear, a green pillow in the shape of a turtle (these were toys my wife had bought without my knowing), even a tiny walker with wheels, a transparent plastic pool, inflatable, with a tube for fixing it to a tap and filling it with water, for the baby to splash around in. (Maybe Ithim could use that one.) There were two tiny cushions, each the size of my palm, for the baby to put its legs and its hands on while it was asleep, their covers inlaid with tiny mirrors and threadwork to reflect the starlight from above.
But what use was all this? Could Ithim ever stand up or sit straight in his life? What would these terms mean for him, standing up? Sitting straight? Even the most fundamental question I couldn’t even start imagining the answer to: How would he grow? Which part of which section of his body would grow? Was something so deformed even meant to grow? Would Nature, looking at him every moment, put an end to this baby, this creature that, by the mere act of his blinking and breathing, was defying it like few ever had? Would Ithim die even before he had lived? And instead of answers, these questions brought tears.
The tears flowed as I stood there, in the middle of the room, the toys all staring at me as if they had come to life in the dark and conspired to snuggle up against each other, joining hands to look at this man who had just walked in, his baby lying on the bed. I cried, not so much for myself or even for Ithim but for my wife and her dreams. I cried for her imagination on display, right there, in front of me, now collapsed into useless artefacts. I cried for her sky-coloured ceiling, her handmade heaven, her safety cot with its handrails, her family of toys and how all of this added up to her idea of the world she wanted our child to walk into when he came home from the hospital. And how that idea now lay dead, if not dying.
Had my wife been there by my side, my tears would have been shared with hers. Perhaps the feel of her body pressed against mine, even in fear and despair, would have lent me, both of us, a certain solidity, prevented me from buckling at the knees, falling over, but there I was, all alone, the ground heaving beneath my feet. And when I found myself, after a while, shivering, I did not know what to do other than to lean against the wall and let the trembling die down.
Through my tears, the stars on the ceiling had become streaks, the fish and the birds moved in circles casting shadows, cold and dark.
BEHIND the toys, lined up on a wooden shelf fixed to the wall, my wife had put the feeding bottles, all Made in China, along with a sterilizer and baby formula. The formula tin had a picture of a baby’s head, its torso missing, but it was a happy baby nonetheless, well fed, its lips parted in a smile, the hair on his head curled into a tiny wisp over his forehead. The Farex Baby. As I reached up to the shelf to bring the bottles down, I suddenly realized it had been a while, quite a while, since I had checked on Ithim.
Leaving everything aside, I rushed out, into the room where Ithim lay, almost ran, tripped, and when I reached his bed, there it was: a tiny wet patch on the bed sheet just below his face, that, when I looked close and touched, was warm. It was his tears.
Ithim had been crying.
And because he could make no noise, he had cried and he had cried, cried so much that the tears had silently fallen and collected into that wet smudge, almost the size of a rupee coin, on the bed. His eyes were closed now and when I touched them with my fingers, they quivered slightly. I can’t describe the relief, the elation that swept over me, sure in the belief that Ithim was safe, that Ithim was alive, because from what the doctors had told me, from what Head Nurse had told me, I knew every moment Ithim lived was borrowed time that would run out any second now whereupon his eyes would close never to open again.
Yes, his death wasn’t a thought so far away. Indeed, at one level – what level I can’t tell you right now and please don’t ask because how can a father wish for the death of his newborn? – something inside me wanted that to happen, wanted the whole thing to end rather than grow into what I could only imagine as a cycle of nightmares never ending.
For what would I do tomorrow, the day after, the next week, the fortnight, the end of the month?
How would we talk, Ithim and I? How would I tell him stories? He would never crawl, never learn to walk. He wouldn’t sleep on my shoulder, he had no little hand to rest on my back. He wouldn’t stumble, would never falter, he wouldn’t hold my hands, let his fingers hold mine. Maybe he would be able to read given his eyes but would someone else have to turn his pages? How would I teach him a language? A few years ago, in the papers, I read about a French journalist who suffered a stroke that paralysed all his speech, all his motion, miraculously leaving just one eye intact. He used this eye to write an entire book, by blinking. He devised a special alphabet which was recited to him and he blinked every time he selected a letter, that’s how he blinked words, sentences, paragraphs, pages and chapters, until his eye closed for ever. But then he wasn’t always like that, he knew the letters, he had lived his life, how would Ithim do it? How would he laugh? Could he, in fact, laugh? Could I take him out of the house? I could put him in a wheelchair but his feet were not there, neither were his hands. Would he scare the other children, would I always have to keep him covered? This was winter so no one would notice if I covered his face or bought a cap with a brim large enough to shelter him but what about May and June? With his perfect eyes, Ithim would see everything but what difference would that make, what would his world be like without the reference frames of the other four senses?
These questions came in a big wave of darkness and chill, like someone made of ice, from head to toe, had walked into the room and was now standing just inches behind me, looking over my shoulder, at me and at Ithim. Forcing me to think of only one thing: Better that Ithim die.
Die, did I just say die?
I take that word back, kill that word, die, just three letters, easy to rub.
(Put your finger on the word on this page and scratch it out with your nails. You can also scratch it out with a pen but the ink will stay, will mark the page, so the best thing is to pierce a hole in the page, in the middle of the word, die, where the letter i is, and then put pressure on either side so the hole grows, swallows the d and the e, makes the word disappear.)
Kill it, kill it.
I didn’t mean it.
I was the father, he was my son.
The telephone rang.
Once.
Twice.
In the silence, each ring was a scream setting my teeth on edge as if it had torn down the door to rush inside. Fearing for Ithim, I almost ran, tripping over the shoes I had just taken off, to pick up the phone before the third ring.
And it was only in that infinitesimal moment of silence that preceded it, the truth hit me: Ithim couldn’t hear.
There was no hurry, therefore, to pick up the phone.
So I stopped, breathed deep, let my heart slow down, let the phone ring, four, five, six.
On the seventh, I picked up.
It was a woman’s voice.
I am Taxidr
iver, I was sixty-four years old, for more than thirty years I worked in this city with the state government as a driver until I retired two years ago and then to supplement my pension and to keep myself busy, I went to the taxi stand in my neighbourhood for I knew the owner and he hired me right away although I told him I was not like his young drivers, I could not do sixteen-hour shifts, I was slow but I was safe and steady, so he put me on the hospital beat and said better that you stay parked there, drive patients home, they need a taxi that is safe and steady, you don’t have to go out of the city, this didn’t pay as much as the other routes but I was grateful that I had a job, although, strictly speaking, I didn’t need it because I lived alone, my wife died three years ago, I have three sons and two daughters, I have ten grand-children in all, and all of them are comfortably placed, my children kept telling me to come and stay with them but I said, no, I couldn’t leave the house where my wife and I lived for more than forty years, I told them I would die there and, true to my word, they killed me just ten steps away from my house, I had parked the taxi at the stand and was returning home when the mob came, I ran into a grocery shop just next to my house, the owner is a friend, and as I waited there, someone called the police and they were very prompt, their jeeps arrived within minutes, even the riot vans, the ones with cages, making us think we were safe now and so I came out of the shop and began walking home but by then the police had begun firing and the mob had run away, frightened, a police bullet hit me in the head, it must not have been meant for me, I am sure of that, because I didn’t do anything, I was only walking but the police bullet, it seems, had my name written on it that day, it entered my head, right between my eyes, I didn’t even feel the pain, I just remember falling down, the smell of the tar on the street, the sound of feet running by, I don’t have many complaints, was too old, all my children and grandchildren are safe, in fact, I can now be reunited with my wife again but I hope my children sell my house and move out of this city now that I am gone, the city wants them out and when a city wants you out and you have a life to live, better to find another place, there is always a place in this country of one billion people where no one can get you however hard they may try.
5. Miss Glass Talks, Yes to a Journey
‘IS this the residence of the husband of Patient Number 110742?’
The construction of the sentence was so odd, with the two awkward ofs, the residence of and the husband of, that its delivery should have been faltering, even clumsy. But no, it wasn’t. Instead, it was calm and confident, seemed to assume more than a passing sense of familiarity, the question asked with no hesitation as if the caller were someone I knew and had put on this formal air merely as a prank and, in a moment or two, would break into laughter, assured, not only of a response but of an entire, animated conversation with a close acquaintance, a dear friend.
All I could say, in reply, was: ‘Yes, I am speaking.’
‘Mr Jay, I am the woman from the hospital. From Holy Angel.’
She knew my name.
‘Is my wife all right?’ My first question.
‘Your wife is stable, in pretty much the same condition she was in when you left her a few hours ago. You don’t have to worry. But I’m not calling you about your wife, Mr Jay.’
‘Who is this?’
‘I told you, I am the woman from the hospital.’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know any woman from the hospital.’
‘Yes, you do, Mr Jay. You visited my room looking for something. I’m sorry I couldn’t leave anything behind except the picture you saw, of the pavement.’
‘What picture? I didn’t see any picture, I have no idea what you are talking about.’
What else should I have said?
Here was a total stranger, a voice forcing its way through the night into my house, into my ears, without any warning.
(And, as you may have guessed by now, I am not exactly one for phone conversations, I find them hurried, the response time so short that in my case even pausing for a breath, a natural pause, is seen as tying of the tongue, at best, indecisiveness and, at worst, a suspicious reluctance to reply. That’s why at work, I have come to be known as the silent fact-finder, the quiet fact-checker. I am the one called upon, at short notice, to supply numbers for pie charts and bar graphs: 61 per cent employment in the country is in the agriculture sector, 22 per cent in services, 17 per cent in industry; domestic air traffic is up by almost a quarter every year, international by 18 per cent; 246 million people live below the poverty line and this number is falling. I am not the one asked to ‘seal deals’ on the telephone or take calls from clients to clarify their doubts.)
So, yes, while I was taken aback by her reference to the picture, I decided I was not going to admit to any of this. At least, not until I had a better idea of who I was talking to.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought you had seen the picture, but maybe I am mistaken.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. I could feel the picture still in my pocket, its hard edges.
‘Let’s forget about that, I called you to say that we should meet.’
‘Why, what for?’
‘That I can’t tell you over the phone. We have to meet. And you may bring him along.’
‘Bring whom?’
‘The baby, the boy. I want to see him.’
‘How do you know it’s a boy?’
‘I found out.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I told you, I am the woman from the hospital.’
I am tempted, as I report this, to explain simultaneously, perhaps in the margins, what I felt as I heard her, as it became clear to me, with each passing word, each sentence she spoke, that here was a woman who was no ordinary caller, who spoke like no stranger I had ever spoken to. And who, in less than a minute, had established herself as the one who held most, if not all, of the threads in the fabric of this conversation. Who was pulling the strings while I, at the other end, was reduced to a mere listener, passive and jerked around.
‘You have a name?’ I asked.
‘Give me a name,’ she said.
‘Listen, please. Don’t joke, I don’t understand why you called me.’
‘I told you twice, we should meet; we have to meet.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why, why can’t you? There’s nothing pressing, urgent for you to attend to, is there?’
‘What do you mean, nothing urgent? My wife is in hospital, unconscious, you seem to know that already. The baby needs my help. I have taken a few days off from work but I have to stay here, take care of my child until my wife comes home.’
‘The responsible husband, are we, Mr Jay, the responsible father?’ she laughed, the mocking clear in her voice. ‘No one would guess that if they knew what you have been through today.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘Where are you calling from?’
‘I am in the city, the same city as you, I used to live here until this evening. I can’t tell you exactly where I am, all I can tell you is that I am safe, no one can get to me now, others aren’t so lucky.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Mr Jay, you must be the only person in this city who doesn’t know what’s been happening the whole day, what’s been happening right through the evening and the night. Surely, you have heard the city is on fire?’
‘Yes, the guard at the hospital mentioned something and the nurse told me to be careful because of the fires but I haven’t seen them yet.’
‘The fires are all around, you just have to look. That’s what I have been doing the whole day, looking, even taking
some pictures.’
‘Where are you, how did you get my number?’
‘How did you enter my hospital room? Burns Ward, fifth
floor, thirteenth door from the corner?’
‘I am sorry, I have to go now, the baby is crying.’
I looked at Ithim, his eyes were closed, he must have cried himself to sleep.<
br />
‘I can help you,’ she said.
‘Help? Me?’
‘Until your wife returns, Mr Jay, I can help you take care of the baby. Men can’t handle such a condition.’
Did she know what condition Ithim was in? It seemed she did, given what she had said so far. For, if she knew I had been to her room, if she knew the baby was a boy, if she knew my phone number, surely, her sources for these details, whoever they may have been, would have also known about Ithim. But if she knew about Ithim, she wasn’t giving even the tiniest hint away. On the contrary, it seemed, or she made it seem, that she wasn’t aware of what kind of a baby he was.
‘No, I can take care of the baby, thank you. But tell me who are you? Tell me right now or else I hang up.’
I thought this threat, deliberately not veiled, would rattle her, that it would help me take the reins of this conversation back into my own hands – but it had just the opposite effect.
‘If you hang up, I will call again, and then I will call again,’ she said. ‘I will call and I will call until you have to keep the phone off the hook, which, of course, you won’t do since you are waiting to hear from the hospital. In case something happens to your wife. You wouldn’t like to miss that call, would you?’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want nothing, Mr Jay.’
‘Then why are you calling me? Why did you choose me from among so many at the hospital, so many in this city?’
‘Now we are getting into things more complex and now isn’t the time to deal with such questions. Let’s, for the time being, leave it at that. That you, Mr Jay, are the chosen one.’
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