Thoroughly tired and fed-up I walked peg-legged out onto the footpath. Harry was waiting for me with our luggage and a rickshaw. He helped me in. Then the driver threw my red suitcase in. It crashed against my leg. I cried out in pain.
‘Sorry, so sorry,’ he said.
‘The Grand Palace please.’ Harry gave the street address.
We had to hold onto the door frames as we drove so we wouldn’t tumble out the vehicle’s open sides. With the sting in my leg dulled I was able to take in the city I had been reading about on the plane.
Delhi has been continuously inhabited since the sixth century BC. You can tell. Some of it is astoundingly modern looking, but the squat headquarters of banks and telcos sit amid ancient ruins and the shells of industry from past generations. The architecture was like nothing I’d ever seen. Some of the oldest monuments bore futuristic fins. With a headcount of eighteen million, according to GlobalMaverick.com, there are approximately 11,297 people packed into each square kilometre. It’s the world’s eighth most densely populated city and more than half the population live in slums that lack pipes, running water and electricity. Even the government doesn’t really know what goes on inside the teeming, steamy heart. Its official website puts the population closer to 13 million, which means somewhere amongst the temples and the traffic and the lean-to buildings they’ve misplaced a cohort of people roughly equivalent to all of Melbourne. That is a lot of births and deaths and illness and life unaccounted for. And the crime is rife: kidnappings, murders, rapes. Not to mention petty thieves and swindlers.
I whispered all this to Harry. As if on cue, the driver turned around to us and said through a gummy grin: ‘You like rugs?’
‘No,’ Harry and I said together.
‘Hand-woven. Bidjar-style. Or Mughal original. Best quality, you see.’
The driver insisted. He was leathery and toothless and wore a New York Yankees cap.
‘Best quality rugs, you see.’
‘Please just take us to the hotel,’ Harry said wearily.
‘Okay.’ The driver fell silent. A moment later he pulled off the motorway. ‘I get gas,’ he said.
The petrol station was next to a rug shop.
‘Best rug store in India,’ he gestured with his head as he held the pump to his rickshaw. ‘You look while I fill up.’
Harry rolled his eyes at me.
‘You come.’ A man stuck his head through the open side of the rickshaw. He was smiling – also toothless – and wore a Chicago Bulls cap. He pulled at Harry’s shirt.
‘Indian rugs. Best quality.’
‘For God’s sake, let’s just quickly look,’ I said.
‘Don’t leave the bags.’ Harry grabbed my suitcase and slung his backpack over his shoulder.
‘You come. You come.’ The shopkeeper bowed and beckoned.
We followed him to an emporium of sorts. It was full of rugs, piles of rugs, but also furniture – bronze statues, busts, cooking implements, religious idols. The owner handed us glasses of tea as we entered. I found an expensive looking copy of the Kama Sutra with richly painted illustrations. There were small paperback copies too. I paid the shop owner four hundred rupees for one and stuffed it into my daypack. If I was going to start dating Chris Campbell, I would have to expand on the repertoire I’d learned with leave-the-lights-off Michael.
Our driver soon joined the shop keeper and they followed us around as we pretended to browse. If our eyes lingered on anything for more than a second they pounced in with a sales pitch.
I glanced at a white elephant on a short-legged stand – ‘That marble Ganesh on Chauki. Is beautiful, hand-painted.’ A peacock-coloured sari – ‘Pure silk, made in Varanasi.’ A large, flat bronze pan – ‘For chapatti. Perfect flavour every time. I give you good price.’
Forty minutes later we arrived at the hotel.
‘Grand Palace,’ announced the driver.
‘Now, remember you’re in India,’ Harry said. ‘Just, lower your expectations.’
‘I thought you said it was four star.’
‘It is four star. Four Indian stars.’
As Harry paid the driver, five men descended upon as and grabbed our luggage.
‘Hello, hello, welcome to the Grand Palace!’ The manager greeted us with a smile as broad as it was white.
The lobby was very dark. Apart from a blanket of dust, the hotel seemed clean enough and well run. But there was an indefinable smell I couldn’t place. It was somewhere between a cleaning agent and an acid. With a hint of mothballs. And the windows were blackened by a thick layer of pollution, so there wasn’t much natural light. We followed a bent, ageing porter into a rickety lift and rode to the third floor.
I used a heavy brass key to open my door. The smell inside my room was even stronger. The bedcovers, the carpet, the curtains, everything was impregnated with it. I dropped my bag. Grime and smog on my skin felt like a clay face mask. I walked into the bathroom and stopped in my tracks.
‘Where’s the shower?’ I demanded of the empty room. I went to the phone on the bedside table (it had a quaint, old-fashioned dial, which I would have loved were it not covered in a waxy film) and called the front desk. I’d be damned if I was going to face another communal bathroom.
The phone made a distant ringing sound followed by some clicks. As I waited I tried to wipe the wax from the phone with a tissue.
Someone at the other end answered. ‘Hello, yes, Delhi Grand Palace. How may I help you?’
‘Hello. This is room 318. There seems to be some problem with my shower.’
‘Yes. Your shower. What is it that seems to be the matter?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘One moment please.’
The line went dead. I was left wondering if we had been cut off or if lodging the complaint was the end of the matter. I was about to dial again when I heard a knock at my door.
The manager came into my room and inspected the ensuite. There was a bucket suspended high on the back wall. He removed it from what I had previously thought to be a hook to reveal a single tap poking from the tiles. There were rust stains where water had dribbled down the wall beneath it.
‘Here is your shower, miss,’ he said, handing me the bucket. Inside was a scrubbing brush and a plastic sachet of liquid soap.
‘Step back, please.’ He turned the tap until it gushed cold water.
‘It seems it is working perfectly,’ he told me. ‘Is there any other assistance that I might provide to you?’
The spout was spluttering water all over the bathroom, including onto the toilet which was thoroughly drenched in seconds.
‘No, that’s fine,’ I said softly.
‘Okay then,’ said the manager. He turned off the tap. ‘If there is anything else, please don’t hesitate to call. My name is Rajeev.’
And he was gone. I fumbled in my daypack for my bottle of hand sanitiser which I drizzled liberally onto my hands.
I was desperate for a shower.
I wrapped my bandaged leg in plastic bags, brought a cane chair in from the bedroom and propped my ankle up to keep the dressing dry.
The cold water was soothing and refreshing. I lathered my hands and scrubbed every inch of my body. After I dried off I looked distastefully at my bandages. They were already starting to darken with diesel soot. But I was worried I’d run out if I changed them too often.
There were two sealed bottles of water sitting on the basin so I could brush my teeth. I ripped the plastic from one and guzzled. There was a tiny tube of toothpaste. I opened it and squeezed but nothing came out. The contents had dried into a white, chalky pellet. I dug Colgate out of my backpack.
I spat the toothpaste into the basin then rinsed it away with water from the tap. As I did I heard a wet, splattering noise. I looked under the basin and discovered the sink wasn’t connected to any pipes. It emptied out onto the tiles. There was a drain in the centre of the room. Curious, I turned the tap on again and let it run. It drained out thr
ough the bottom of the basin and rushed towards the hole in the floor. Sure enough, it carried my toothpaste foam with it. It disappeared into the darkness with a slurp and a gurgle.
I was one half amazed and one half repulsed. But grateful for my Colgate and grateful for my water. As I brushed and my mouth filled with the minty flavour I began to feel half-normal again. The toothpaste was like a magic potion that was restoring my energy. On my bedside table was a bottle of water Harry had given me. I pulled out my phone and sent him a text.
Thnx for your help with everything today. Hosp, hotel. Everything.
He buzzed back: No prblm.
No really. I mean it. You’re a real Wiz!
>:-(
I giggled and switched off my light. In the morning I would do something about getting to Varanasi.
Chapter Ten
‘Today I thought we might take a look at Qutab Minar and the Jama Masjid,’ Harry said over a breakfast of black coffee, oily rotti bread, and views of the city. ‘The Masjid is a mosque built by the same emperor who built the Taj Mahal. And the Qutab Minar is one of the most striking monuments you will see in Delhi.’
‘That sounds good.’ I needed a distraction. Before going to bed I had snuck downstairs and written to Chris to say I had arrived in Delhi. When I’d checked my mail before breakfast he hadn’t replied. I wasn’t sure if he was still here or on his way to Varanasi.
‘Okay,’ said Harry, loading the last of the rotti bread with chutney and shovelling it into his mouth. ‘Let’s go sightseeing.’
‘Just one thing first.’
I had spotted a street stall where I could swap my possessed suitcase for a backpack. It was just half a block from our hotel. I found one with thick straps and a removable daypack and let them keep my empty case.
‘Watch out!’ Harry pulled me to him out of the path of an over loaded motorbike.
‘Here.’ He manoeuvred me onto his other side. ‘I’ll walk on the roadside.’
‘I’m not a delicate lady in need of your protection,’ I said.
‘I know you’re not,’ Harry waved his hand in front of my face. ‘But I do suspect you might be blind.’
We hailed a rickshaw, clambered in and watched the city whizz by through its open sides. I was a little afraid of what would happen if we crashed. But most of the traffic was bicycles, other rickshaws and the occasional cow.
Among the smog and murk were explosions of colour – garlands of flowers hung from store fronts. Stalls displayed sweets, fruits, gold wedding jewellery as yellow as my hair, and satin shoes of every colour you could imagine.
The Quatab Minar was a giant minaret that rose in the centre of a complex of temples and tumbling structures. We walked inside to see goats sitting on stone recesses, like hairy-faced beggars. Their rickety legs were folded beneath them and tucked away like a deck chair. They observed the city, looking placid and world-weary.
‘Look.’ Harry pointed to a monkey with two babies on her back.
In India there were animals everywhere – cows standing vacant-eyed in the middle of eight-lane roads as rivers of traffic swerved around them; elephants lumbering up and down the streets; cats and dogs reclining on every available surface.
‘Do you need a guide, sir, ma’am?’ A neat young man wearing a long white kurta under an Adidas windcheater, approached us. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen. He told us his name was Musheer.
‘It means advice,’ he said proudly.
We followed Musheer through the gates into the green gardens of the UNESCO-protected monuments.
‘The Qutab Minar was built in the twelfth century. At seventy-three metres, it is the second tallest minaret in India,’ he said.
‘The mosques in the grounds are some of the oldest in the land. This is most impressive when you consider there are Buddhist stupas dating back to the first century BC.’
We circled the minar. Interspersed between the ornate carvings, its sections were built from giant blocks of red sandstone that looked like modern brickwork. We toured the gutted walkways that connected the temples dotted about the grounds. We came to a monument that looked was like a sundial, only without the dial. In its place was a dome. Harry placed his hand on the top of it and rubbed the smooth head.
‘I’ve seen these before,’ he said. ‘But I’ve never known what they were.’
‘That is a lingam-yoni,’ said Musheer. ‘It represents the indivisible nature of male and female. The lingam, which you are so fondly rubbing, is the symbol of male virility.’
Harry quickly withdrew his hand. I giggled.
‘The lingam-yoni is not merely a symbol of sex. It is the inseparability of the male and female principles. It is the symbol of all creation. All life. Women pour milk and honey into the yoni to pray for children.’
‘What do you do when you’re not being a tour guide?’ I asked.
‘I study at the tech college, I want to work in IT.’
After the tour, Harry gave Musheer the hundred rupees he had quoted, and then pressed another five hundred rupee note into his hand.
‘I have a tip too.’ I fossicked in my bag and found five hundred rupees. Musheer gave me a radiant smile. I’d given him about ten dollars.
‘Here,’ I said, looking for more.
‘No, please.’ He stopped me. ‘Shall we enjoy some refreshments?’
He took us to a cosy restaurant with low tables and jewel-coloured cushions. Harry ordered a vegetable korma.
‘You’re not vegetarian,’ I said.
‘But you are. I’m not going to make you sit here and watch me eat lamb. And this way we can share.’
I smiled. ‘Thanks.’ I couldn’t help but picture myself at McDonald’s watching Michael scarf down a Big Mac meal.
I ordered a navratan korma and ate every last morsel (except for two spoonfuls I gave to Harry in exchange of a scoopful of his korma). It tasted amazing.
‘Good, huh?’ Harry said. I wanted to pick my plate up and lick it.
We bade farewell to Musheer and headed to Humayun’s Tomb, the burial site for the first wife of Emperor Humayun. To my eyes, it looked like a miniature version of the Taj Mahal that a child had coloured in with red pencils.
We climbed the stone stairs. At the top there was a balcony and a view of the courtyard below. Pieces of its wall had fallen away over the centuries.
‘I love how accessible everything is,’ Harry said. ‘If we were in Sydney this whole area would be roped off and covered with big signs warning that the tourism operator was not responsible if an ancient piece of stone work fell on you.’
‘It’s amazing how well preserved it is,’ I said, grimacing as we started down the stairs again. I was limping a little on my throbbing leg.
Harry took my hand and helped me down the last little bit. ‘How are your burns?’
‘They’re okay.’ I lied, withdrawing my hand from his. ‘The doctor did an excellent job.’
The wound stung and pulled as I stretched my legs.
Downstairs the entrance was swarming with hawkers. They buzzed around a large tourist bus, banging their wares against the windows. Men held up fistfuls of beads and jewellery boxes; little children tugged at shirt sleeves to show the wearers their selection of postcards.
‘Sir, sir! You buy.’
‘Miss! Postcards!’
‘Where to next?’ Harry asked.
‘I wouldn’t mind a shower.’
‘Hotel then dinner?’
I nodded.
Buses pulled in and out. Crowds of tourists swept on and off. It was chaotic, like two warring armies clashing – the bus people who wanted to get into the tomb, and the locals, unwilling to let them pass without paying the toll of a souvenir purchase.
‘Postcards, postcards. A souvenir for you! Best price! Delhi’s best price.’
Another large, shiny bus pulled up. There was a hiss as the door opened. The tribe of sellers heard it and rushed towards it like a single organism: Two hundred eyes, two hund
red arms and a single thought: sell.
I felt a clod on my foot as a man trampled on me. I was knocked from the left, sent spinning on my feet. Then I felt a stab in my calf. A small child had crashed into my tender burn.
‘Hold onto my hand!’ Harry shouted over the din.
I reached out to catch his fingers. ‘Harry!’ I was being pulled back. The wave of people was moving south to where another bus was approaching. Our hands broke apart.
I couldn’t see his face, only a white arm emerging from among the saris and the long black braids. ‘Best price, Miss!’
A sound – a wail – cut through the noise. It was the Adhan – calling the city’s Muslims to prayer. The crowd shifted direction again. The current pulled me and Harry further apart. We were drowning in people. I stood on my tippy toes and tried to break the surface. I gulped for air. I could see Harry’s red cap. Then it was gone. There were only strings of prayer beads and salesmen’s faces before me.
‘Best price! Best price!’
‘Harry!’
‘Best price! Best price!’
‘Harry!’
I couldn’t see him anywhere. By the entrance gate was a stout, stone wall. I moved towards it, thinking if I got up higher I’d be able to spot him. The wall was covered with children, their wares laid out on display.
‘Can I get up here, please,’ I put my foot on a low stone. The kids scrambled to clear a space for me. One of the older boys held out his hand. I sighed and pressed twenty rupees into it, then clambered up to where I could get a better view.
I shouted Harry’s name once, twice. My call was lost in the racket. I stood on the tips of my toes and scanned the crowds. A few times I spied a red hat and called out in its direction only to discover it was some other tourist who favoured red headwear. Another bus arrived releasing more bodies into the chaos.
I wondered what I would do if I didn’t find Harry. He knew the way to the hotel, and my phone’s battery had gone flat. I began to feel worried. The worry wrestled with a growing feeling of despair. Where could he have gone? Why would he leave without me?
Chasing Chris Campbell Page 11