So did I feel embarrassed showing him to people? Did I see his physical form as some sort of a personal slur? I would be lying if I said no but then again, that wasn’t the issue. Ithim was my child and it would be unfair, I thought, to let people see him like this, to make a first impression when I had been assured of a second, improved version.
I had already spent far too long a time at the cybercafe but I wasn’t too concerned. I needed to be at the railway station by five and it was still early morning, not even seven, seven-thirty, at least eight or nine hours still to go for the train.
I followed Mr Meeko to his terminal as he began writing out the receipt, I could feel Ithim pressed to my chest, the bag now heavier, weighed down by Miss Glass’s pages. Mr Meeko wrote slowly, stretching each letter out, the curl of the J, the angle of the A, the downward stroke of the Y, as if he wanted to keep me there for a little while, opening a gap for maybe a conversation.
And as if compensating for the lie I had just told him, I rushed to fill in the gap: ‘Mr Meeko, you heard about the fires in the city, the killings?’
Without looking up from the receipt book, he said: ‘Yes, very strange, I saw something on my webcam, on this terminal.’ And he glanced up at me once, then reached out, the pen still in his hand, and patted his terminal. The screen on his computer was blank. ‘I saw it here on my desktop.’
‘What did you see?’ I asked.
‘Why don’t you sit down for a while?’ Mr Meeko said. ‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘No, I was just going to the hospital,’ I said.
‘Well, then I wouldn’t like to delay you. Hospital hours are very strict but if you have some time, join me for a cup of tea.’ He pointed to a chair next to him, behind the counter, on which sat a kettle and two cups. Not very different from what I saw in the Abba attachment.
My silence had perhaps given him the answer. The receipt ready, he gently tore it off and after he had handed it to me, taken my money, counted out my change, he got off his chair, pushed it aside and then began pouring out the tea.
A cup of tea, why not? I needed it.
‘I didn’t have my morning tea today,’ Mr Meeko said, ‘the webcam kept me very busy, very disturbed.’
‘THE sun wasn’t up, Mr Jay,’ Mr Meeko said, ‘when I came in this morning and the image on my desktop was exactly as I have shown you so many times. The same pavement, that same tiny strip, but then this morning there was a streak, almost a diagonal, white in some places, black in others, grey in between. As if someone had taken a chalk and drawn a line over the lens of the webcam outside. Or on the screen itself. A fingerprint, perhaps, maybe mine.
‘But then I looked hard.’ Here Mr Meeko began to act it out, turning in his chair, bringing his face close to the terminal, the teacup in one hand, the pen in the other. ‘I tore off some tissue paper, moistened it with warm water and rubbed the screen, wiped it with the sleeve of my shirt. But the smudge was still there.
‘And then, Mr Jay, suddenly it hit me, it couldn’t be removed because the streak wasn’t on the screen, it was in the picture. And it was smoke. Smoke carried up by the warm air in the cold of the night, smoke outside. And just now I saw on the Net that the city is on fire, that hundreds have been killed.’
He moved to the door. ‘I have kept you long, Mr Jay, I am sorry.’
I had listened to Mr Meeko without saying a word. I was tempted, very strongly, to show him my message from Miss Glass, the three pictures, maybe even ask him to read the attachments. (For, so far, in all our conversations, it had always been Mr Meeko who had the interesting tales, and I was the one adding my bit to each but now, it seemed, I had a better story in my bag than Mr Meeko could ever have imagined.)
But no, I decided against it. Because that would have surely opened the floodgates: if I were to show him the message, I would then have to tell him about Miss Glass, about her phone call, the hospital, about Ithim, about this journey; I would have to admit that I had lied to him. I couldn’t resist one question, however.
‘You saw the bodies? Where have they come from?’
‘What bodies?’ Mr Meeko asked, looking bewildered. ‘I haven’t seen any bodies.’
‘You can see them now,’ I said, pointing to the one nearest to him, on the street near Fruitseller, the small one, blackened and charred.
Mr Meeko’s gaze followed my arm and he shook his head. ‘No, Mr Jay, there is nothing there,’ he said, ‘and don’t joke with me about serious matters like these.’
I could have dragged him there by the arm; we could have gone down on our knees and stared at the body, up close. But, no, I could see the bus across the street and if Mr Meeko, my friend, couldn’t see the bodies, well, then there was little I could do.
Must have been the sun that got into his eyes.
I am Floor Body they showed on the news on TV, I was twenty-six years old, I don’t have much to say, my friend just had her birthday, I am alive, she said, you are dead, so I should send you a gift on my birthday, it will make you feel better, she said, and she sent me a poem she wrote:
‘I have no right to fear and tears now.
I have to laugh and smile.
Eat to my stomach’s content.
And have a nightful sleep.
I am still alive and unharmed.
My home, not yet looted or burnt.
Nor am I raped or roasted alive.
My family is still around.
My friends haven’t written the obituary yet.
I have no right to fear and tears now.
I have to laugh and smile.
Birthday celebrations, cake and cream.
Anonymous survival, the hidden head held high,
Some more photographs for the album,
Are the only acts of Defiance.
One more day adds to Life.
I have to laugh and smile.
I have no right to fear and tears now.
I have to eat to my stomach’s content.
And have a nightful sleep.’
My parents, my sister, my uncles, my nephews, my aunts, my nieces, my friends, my old schoolmates, my teachers, my neighbours, all are alive, my friend is right, they now have no right to fear and tears, that’s only for people like me.
15. On The Road, In The Mall
CALL it coincidence: within an hour of seeing the bodies rain down on the street at the bus stop, within minutes of reading Miss Glass’s message, I saw a mob, I saw some of those behind this city on fire. And I saw them, not through written words or printed pictures, not between the lines of singsong verse – with their a-rhyme-any-time kind of rhymes – but in the flesh, through the windscreen of the bus I boarded after I left the cybercafe. (No. 46 Circular, the one that goes to the hospital, then to the railway station, I would have missed it had the driver not stopped when he saw me running across the divider, holding what must have looked to anybody else like a rather bulky bundle.)
There was no one inside the bus except the driver and me (and Ithim, of course), so when it started moving, the clatter was louder than usual, the noise of its engine resonating in the emptiness inside, amplified by the trembling of the bus’s decrepit, wooden frame and the jangling of its worn-out wood against tin, warped and dented in several places. I took the seat right behind Busdriver, behind the aluminium partition that set him apart from the passenger section. That the bus was empty at this time of the day and that there was no conductor – who would I pay for the ticket? – struck me as odd and unusual but once I was seated and the bus was moving I felt safe and reassured, aware that Busdriver was only a couple of feet away and, because he had stopped for me to board, had become an unsuspecting ally in my journey.
I had taken the window seat, placed the bag in my lap, and was looking out as we passed the cybercafe and the burnt shops, my chin resting on the window’s wooden bars. Ever since I was a child, I have liked doing this in a bus, resting my chin in such a way that my teeth chatter, feeling the shudder of the vehicle transm
itted across my entire body and thus connect my insides, my face, my lips and my teeth, through the axle and the wheels to the road below and, from there, to the entire city. And while I sat there, almost frozen in that position, and because I was there all alone, with no other passengers to look at or be looked at by, not one face in front (except the driver), or to the left or the right, I thought: Why not let Ithim feel this, too? Why not like father like son?
I brought the bag close to the edge of the seat, raised it to the window and then uncovered Ithim’s face. He was asleep, the charred strip of flesh on his forehead looking softer in the morning light. Careful that the towel wrapping him didn’t slip off, I lifted Ithim to the window and then, for just a moment, let his cheek touch one wooden bar. He kept sleeping, connected to the city. I tried to imagine what he would have felt, the trembling of the bus against his new skin, the wind across his face, the sunlight that he must have seen through his closed eyelids, yellow half-light in the dark.
‘Where are you going?’ Busdriver’s voice was loud, almost made me jump in my seat. I saw that he had slowed down the bus so I could hear him above the noise.
Hurriedly, I slid Ithim back into the bag although there was no way Busdriver could have seen him. ‘Holy Angel Hospital,’ I said, to which he nodded his head, noisily stepped on the gas again.
‘Why is the bus so empty?’ I asked.
He didn’t hear me, kept driving.
‘Why is there no one in the bus?’ I stretched the question out, awkwardly, word by word, a pause in between:
‘Why, is, there, no, one, in, the, bus?’
This time he heard. And replied without turning to glance in my direction. ‘There’s a curfew where we are going,’ he said. ‘No one is allowed on the streets.’
‘Near the hospital?’
‘No, on the way to the hospital.’
‘So how come you are on the street?’
‘I know I shouldn’t have taken the bus out but I need to deposit it at the terminal where my owner’s other vehicles are. If I don’t, I lose one day’s salary. But you don’t worry, I’ll drop you off right in front of the hospital.’
Busdriver’s back was straight, his arms too, his hands held the steering wheel, almost too big for a man his size.
‘Are the fires still burning?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the whole of yesterday, then last night and even now, they continue across the city. You must have seen them last night.’
‘No, I was at the hospital,’ I said, realizing after I had said it that I hadn’t needed to tell him that. Surely, he would now ask me why I was at the hospital. But it was as if he hadn’t heard.
‘Many were killed last night,’ he said. ‘Hope your child is all right, good that you have covered him with a bag, you can never be sure.’
So then Busdriver had seen Ithim, possibly in his rear-view mirror.
‘Yes, he’s all right, I’m taking him to the hospital,’ I said. ‘He was born—’
‘Get down,’ Busdriver screamed, as if in reply.
‘GET down,’ he said, ‘get down and lie there. And stay there until I tell you; don’t move.’ I got down, scrambling to the floor, Ithim in his bag still on the seat, the bag now slumped to one side under its weight. I was on all fours, crouching on my hands and knees; I could feel the movement of the bus course through my body and I tried to balance myself as we swayed and swerved but soon I gave up and I let myself fall, face down.
‘Stay there,’ came Busdriver’s voice again, ‘do as I tell you.’
Still lying down, I looked up to check on Ithim. Propped on the seat, he seemed safe. I reached out with one hand, crawled forward and touched the bag; I could feel him through the fabric and kept my hand there, holding him in place, afraid a sudden jerk could topple the bag down to the floor.
‘OK, now get up slowly but stay low, stay crouched,’ Busdriver said, ‘come towards me, raise your head and look.’ The bus had now slowed to a crawl; Busdriver had pulled over and was merely inching forward, the noise of the engine now a soft purring. ‘Don’t let them see you.’
I did exactly as told.
And I saw the mob.
Over Busdriver’s head, over his oiled hair brushed back, over his white shirt collar streaked with grey, the mob appeared like a thick black line etched where the sky meets the city, stretching from one end of the street to the other, thicker than a mere line, more like a band of several lines, about ten or so, like bar codes you see on products in markets these days, each drawn behind the other, close, hardly any space in between. Each moving, all moving. Each advancing, all advancing.
Towards, so it seemed, me.
Towards the bus. And towards Ithim.
As for the noise? No words, no sentences, no paragraphs, no punctuation, the mob spoke in a language I had never heard, unintelligible, a hum, like static in a radio the size of the street, like snow flickering on a television set, the screen as wide as the sky. Rising and falling, like a wave, advancing towards us, carrying along with it scraps of voices, shouts and screams and the shuffle of feet after countless feet. The only thing I could make out clearly was that they were all men, most of them in shirts and trousers, some with handkerchiefs wrapped around their heads like scarves, the first few rows of the advancing column armed, some with steel poles, others with wooden sticks and still others with torches in their hands, flames, yellow and blue, set against the sky. And because the morning had begun to give way to the day, the flames looked weak when the torches were held high but fierce when they were lowered flickering against the faces of the mob, the yellow and the blue against skin, dark brown. Yes, I felt fear but under that fear, like water below ice, I also felt a sense of awe. There were hundreds of men and the fact that each one had temporarily switched off his mind to plug himself to something larger – this was the power of the mob, its menacing sense of order coexisting with the chaos that gave it its energy. If Ithim hadn’t been there, perhaps I would have watched, standing by the side of the road, maybe even joined.
‘You have to get off,’ Busdriver said. ‘This could get dangerous. I’ll drop you off near the mall,’ he said, ‘Plaza, it should have just opened so you go inside, it’s very safe. There are extra forces deployed there, many policemen. Stay there for a while, look around, wait for the mob to pass, then you can come out, take either the 46 or the 56 to the hospital. Or take a taxi, I would suggest.’
He was reversing, turning into a side street. The mob didn’t seem to notice, or even if it had, didn’t seem to care. Perhaps an empty bus with a lone driver wasn’t worth the effort. (And a man with a deformed child wasn’t what they were after either.) I picked up Ithim from the seat and pressed him close to me again. When I checked in the bag, I saw Ithim’s eyes were open; he was blinking. His eyelashes and cheeks were dry so he hadn’t cried. But what had he seen through the bag?
‘Get down here, go, go,’ said Busdriver, the bus having stopped in the middle of the street at the entrance to the mall. A man in blue overalls and yellow plastic boots was scrubbing the huge glass doors, his bucket of dirty water by his side. Three policemen sat on a bench, two of them fast asleep.
‘Go,’ Busdriver said, ‘don’t worry about the ticket, just go. And take care of the child.’
Before I could turn to take one last look at him, he was gone.
And I was on the street, right in front of Plaza Mall, the city’s latest showpiece, safe and intact in the fire.
AND he was right. Busdriver was right. For the moment Ithim and I stepped inside, through the glass door that the man in overalls opened for us, I realized what he meant when he said you will be safe: the sheer number of doors I was facing now, all inviting me to enter, offering me places to hide, places to seek.
Doors, lined up, one next to the other, brightly lit interiors behind each as if it was morning outside but evening inside as if the mall existed in a different time zone within the city. This was certainly disorienting at first – this was my first visit
to Plaza, although my wife and I had made several plans to come here, all derailed by her pregnancy – but soon it became clear it would be difficult, if not impossible, for any one to track down either Ithim or me here.
We were safe. For, look what we had, prostrate at our feet, at our beck and at our call:
Nirvana Fitness Studio, lose weight the safe and healthy way, fitness solutions for the entire family under one roof, for men and women, unisex also, special yoga classes by prior appointment
Viewfinder Optique (Eye and Ear), reasonable, satisfactory, well-equipped, designer frames, state of the art equipment, laser
Elegant Furnishers, specialists in sofas and curtains, Roman blinds, drapery rods, awnings, beanbags, wicker-cane baskets, seat
Smokin’ Joe’s, fresh pizzas with three toppings free, yummy, yum, yum
Blooms ’n’ Petals, flower delivery anywhere in the city
Travelbug World Tours, special packages for couples and families, Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, complete with veg, non-veg food, special arrangements for Jain veg food without onion and garlic
The Nike Store
Tia’s Treasure House for traditional wears, saris, kurtas and kurtis, for parties and marriages, engagement ceremonies
Tommy Hilfiger, pre-spring sale . . .
And these, just in one half of the ground floor, just within the first few minutes of our stepping inside. There were three other floors, all linked by escalators. So all I had to do now was to walk in and out of these stores, browse, window-shop, Ithim in my bag – there were even benches if I wanted to sit, rest my feet, take the bag off my shoulders – and the hours would go by, the mob would pass, the fires would die down, the sun would climb higher in the sky, the bodies that had fallen would be picked up in trolleys or ambulances, taken to be buried or burnt again. And then I would head for the hospital.
Fireproof Page 17