by Anosh Irani
She felt sick. This zoo visit was a terrible idea. All it had done was pinpoint her shortcomings as a mother. The rage started rising within her. She needed to hurt herself. She reached into her handbag and took out her nail cutter and began to make cuts on her forearm, like someone who desperately wanted to satisfy an itch, except that the itch was total evisceration. She felt some relief as the blood trickled, tiny streams of justice. She kept at it until she felt the pain deeply, until it made her eyes well up.
“Mummy,” she heard someone say.
A young girl was staring at her. She was pointing Reshma out to her mother, who was looking at Reshma, aghast.
“Can you tell me where the penguins are?” Reshma asked the woman. She put the nail cutter back into her handbag, casually, so as not to alarm the girl any further. This was not something the little girl should have seen. But why was the child staring at humans? Why wasn’t she looking at the animals?
The woman pointed into the distance. “Thank you,” was all Reshma said.
Once she was a fair distance away, she stopped and called Lalit. Screw the penguins. Screw those black-and-white miserable plumpy fuckheads. But Lalit wasn’t answering his phone. She called him again, and again. He was out to lunch and so was his damn phone. She had told Bakul not to assign Lalit to her, but did Bakul listen? To anything? There was no use going back to the car. She would probably take a small rock and smash the window of the Audi if Lalit wasn’t around. It was best to march on.
It wasn’t hard to find the penguin enclosure. The path towards it was lined with plastic facsimiles, like little watchmen grinning away, still as a moment, still as life in shock. These plastic birds led her to a blue building.
HUMBOLDT PENGUINS
The sign was huge. The penguins were the star attraction of the zoo, no doubt. There was a substantial crowd in front of the enclosure, and the lineup was long and winding, like the rest of Reshma’s life. She stood, waiting her turn. She wiped the blood on her wrist with her handkerchief, and then dabbed her lips with the cloth as well.
Lalit was phoning her back. She didn’t answer. Let him worry.
When at last she entered the building, she felt a change in temperature. It was much colder inside, like her room at home, which was always colder than the rest of the house. Around her were scores of children, and mothers, and fathers, all expectant, all so eager.
Her excitement had died, and had been replaced with a low, grumbling feeling of confusion. She felt disoriented amidst the pitter-patter of small feet. The sound would have been sweet if it were not for the fact that none of those feet had any connection to her. Her head drooped, and she nudged the man in front of her with her handbag. He was walking too slowly. The attendant checked her ticket again, and asked the woman behind her to put her cellphone away.
“No photo allowed,” he said.
She could now see the glass enclosure, one-fourth of it filled with clear water.
The air was thick with oohs and aahs and mummies pointing this way and that, and daddies holding toddlers, kissing them, extra…extra kisses in this air-conditioned room. When the penguins came into Reshma’s line of sight, she felt momentarily dizzy. They were swimming from one end to the next in a flurry. Some of them were sliding along the glass, their bellies rubbing against it, releasing small bubbles as they travelled.
How many were there? She counted four.
The cop on duty kept blowing a whistle, to keep the line moving, and this irritated her. She spotted two more penguins standing on the rock surface, facing the audience. They reminded her of the adult, plastic ones she had seen earlier near the fire temple, and suddenly everything made sense. The penguin parents were sending out a chant from underneath the bridge, a call to action, and their kids were responding in a frenzy, swimming up and down like battery dolls. If the enclosure had been more silent, she would have been able to hear their incantation, but the crowd was so noisy, so enthralled by this circus, they missed hearing the chant completely. Now the two penguins that had been standing jumped into the water and joined the other four. The six of them were swimming from one end to the other. The cop blew his whistle, asking people to move along in a single file; there were others waiting to get in. For once, Reshma was grateful for a cop. She wanted to get the hell out.
She was a few feet away from the exit when she saw something red flash before her eyes. The source of the flash was hiding behind a boulder. He was wearing a red T-shirt. He was taking a peek at the crowd, like a child playing hide-and-seek. So human he was. She froze when she saw his face. That familiarity again…it was the penguin on the poster, no doubt about it. Suddenly, she felt a serenity, a quiet thank you, but…for what? Was it from him to her, or from her to him?
A shrill whistle disturbed her reverie. The cop was looking at her and blowing it, and a female cop came forward and held Reshma’s hand.
“Madam, please move,” she said.
“But…I’m not done.”
“Please move,” the female cop said again, firmly this time. “You can rejoin the line and come back from outside.”
Reshma was furious. Not because she cared about being asked to move but because the penguin had disappeared. She wanted to slap the cop. Could the cop not see what had been transpiring? That a moment had been born, between her and that little boy?
She stomped her way round the building and got in line again. But this time she did not wait. She strode ahead of everyone else with an intent so fierce that no one dared question her. When the attendant opened his mouth to protest, she told him, “Someone stole my wallet.”
He looked at the handbag she was holding.
“This is a handbag,” she said. “My purse is missing.”
Not wanting to argue, sensing that this woman was moneyed and therefore important, the attendant let her pass.
“Who is the one in the red T-shirt?” Reshma asked him.
“Oh, that’s Mr. Molt,” said the attendant.
“Who?”
“Mr. Molt. That’s his name. It’s his birthday today, so he was made to wear a T-shirt.”
The six penguins were all in the water, and the little one could not be seen. The others were now in a complete tizzy; Reshma was sure that the shamans from underneath the bridge were controlling these penguins. But to what end? Couldn’t they see that they were driving their own children up the wall, literally? The penguins were almost banging into the glass, as if they were trying to slide up, against the glass, into the crowd, into freedom. But the crowd was not freedom, she wanted to tell them. Anything but. Crowds were cold and insensitive. Or overbearing. But this was not her business. She was only interested in Mr. Molt. No, she would not call him that. It was too cold a name.
She stood in the middle of the line and refused to budge. She got a few dirty stares, but her stare was dirtier. Soon, all stares dissolved. When the cop blew his whistle again, she blew back. She pointed to a sign that had been posted by the authorities on the glass: No loud noises. They disturb the Humboldt penguins.
“You’re scaring them!” she said. “Can’t you follow your own rule?”
The crowd moved away from her like ripples from a stone that has just been tossed into the water. Reshma looked for the little one again.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t be scared…”
But he didn’t come. He could not hear her.
“It’s me,” she said.
She could hear herself. She knew how she sounded, knew exactly what she was saying. She felt herself sinking into the ground—because maybe that was the only thing left to do, to sink into the ground and emerge in the penguin enclosure, and rise to the surface through the water to reach him.
She felt the world spin, and held tight to the railing.
Once again, red revealed itself, a bright flash against a different pillar. The little one was scared.
“Come out,” she said. “Show yourself to me.”
There was only him and her now. Slowly, inc
h by inch, he came forward.
“There’s the birthday boy!” said someone from the crowd.
The man next to her was singing, “Happy birthday, happy birthday.” The little one now showed himself fully, and she felt something enlarge within her, as if she was being stretched, given new cells. He stood stationary, right opposite her.
Once again that beautiful familiarity, as if she was listening to a song she had heard a long time ago but forgotten.
He was unlike his brothers and sisters—and Reshma suddenly felt certain he wasn’t their sibling, just as the penguins under the bridge weren’t his mother and father. That’s why he was not responding to their call. He was responding to Reshma’s.
Still, she had to be sure.
She looked at him now, with a promise so solid, a promise that said, If it is you, then this time I won’t let anything happen to you. You have my word.
What would his response be? How could he possibly show her that it might be him? That it was him?
And then, he did the unthinkable.
He turned around and revealed his bum to the audience.
“It is you,” Reshma gasped. “Oh my God, it is you.”
He used to do the same thing when he faced a crowd. When scores of relatives came over to see him, to wish him a happy birthday—but not out of affection; out of fear and respect, and the need to be in Bakul Gawande’s good books—he had, out of sheer contrariness, showed his butt to them all. The situation had been exactly the same:
A crowd was singing “Happy Birthday.”
A crowd was staring at him.
No photographs were allowed then, either, because Bakul did not allow photographs to be taken inside his home.
And he had worn a red T-shirt.
Reshma would go to him, whisk him up in her arms, and carry him back to his room. How he had smiled. How he had gurgled and laughed, like a fountain.
There was no doubt now. This was her Keshu.
And Keshu wanted her to rescue him.
She blew him a kiss through the glass. “I will be with you soon,” she said. “Don’t you worry, Mummy has found you.”
* * *
—
BAKUL GAWANDE HAD NEVER BEEN this worried. Not even when he had stabbed a man for the first time. It was the expression on the man’s face that had scared him, the man’s realization that these were the last few seconds of his life. Moreover, the man had been an acquaintance, so Gawande had wanted to say something to him while the knife was inside him, something to the effect of, “It’s not personal,” or “This will be over soon.” Something like that. But before he could say anything, the knife had done its job. Then he’d had to run.
But when it came to Reshma, he couldn’t run. He had plenty of time to say things to her, to reason with her, but nothing made a difference. It was the expression on her face that terrified him. Unlike the man he had killed, Reshma grew stronger by the minute. Stronger and calmer. So resolute in her intention, a general at war. Now was the time to strike, she seemed to say. Keshu needs us. Before now, she had stopped uttering his name. Even when she had sobbed at night, there were just cries, yells, directed at the skies and the pillows. If he’d tried to soothe her, she screamed more. But now she mentioned her son’s name with disturbing calm.
Bakul was seated in the living room, his purohit opposite him. He sipped his single malt, but all it did was hurt his throat. The purohit was in his white dhoti and bare-chested, with his sacred thread around him, but he too looked perplexed.
“Tell me what to do,” asked Bakul.
“I…I don’t know,” said the purohit.
You don’t know? Bakul wanted to throw the single malt across the man’s tiny face. The purohit was the one who had started all this. “Your son will come back to you,” he had said to Reshma. “Love like that always finds its way back.”
And now he didn’t know what to do?
“My suggestion is that you play along,” said the purohit.
“She came back with cuts on her wrist!” Bakul lowered his voice. Reshma was in the bedroom, and the door was closed, but he did not want her to hear him.
“It has given her hope. It would be dangerous to take it away.”
“Why can’t you people think before you speak? Why would you tell her that our son will come back?”
“Sir, we believe in reincarnation…”
“So do I. But every time I have someone killed, I don’t tell him, ‘Listen, it’s okay, you’ll come back.’ Do I?”
The purohit decided it was best to stay silent.
“Is there anything in your scriptures that speaks of how animals will remain animals and not ever become human?”
“Sir, at this point, no matter what I say, your wife will believe only what she wants to believe. She was not very religious anyway, if you remember. It’s just that she’s now choosing to…” The purohit trailed off. He did not want to judge the woman. She was in the throes of grief, so animalistic it mauled you and left you reeling forever. He had seen people cope in different ways. Some clung to God, some to holy books, others to drink, some took their own lives, others sang devotional songs and claimed they saw colours, and some became humbled by the experience and entered into service for their fellow human beings. This, however, was new.
“It’s unknown how she will react if you don’t follow through,” he said. “It is my suggestion that you do whatever you can.”
“I’d like you to speak with her.”
“Sir, what can I—”
“You started this. You end it. Tell her it’s all bakwaas.”
“Sir, I…I can’t. This is a kind of devotion. An unusual love from an unusual person.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It might seem like rubbish. But there is a purity in it…she is reaching a state that very few souls experience.”
Bakul reflected that he badly wanted the priest to experience an altered state too. One created by smashing his head with a cricket bat. But he told himself to calm down.
How quickly the day had turned. It was meant to be a day of exultation.
By successfully eliminating Ahmed, owner of Panther Heart, Bakul was now the undisputed don of the city, and yet here he was, sitting in his living room, cowering before his wife’s whims and fancies. He missed his son too. But this—this was beyond the human heart. This was debauchery.
He got up from the sofa with a jerk that made the purohit nervous.
“Come,” he said. “You will come with me. We will go to the bedroom and we will reason with her.”
He placed his hand on the purohit’s shoulder and was surprised by how cold it was. Why the guy didn’t wear a shirt, even in an air-conditioned room, was something Bakul could never understand. Maybe he should have offered the purohit a shawl. Hell, he would give him ten shawls, all pashminas, if he could put some sense into his wife. He would import ten sheep from New Zealand and the purohit could make the wool himself if he so wished.
Bakul knocked on the door and waited for a response. No answer.
He slowly opened the door, and led them both into the dimness of the room. But it wasn’t as dark as usual. His wife wasn’t lying in bed, either. She was sitting in a chair, her back upright, with a table lamp next to her, and she was doing something with her hands. He followed his wife’s gaze to the wall above their bed. Shadows were in play there, forming, thanks to the movements of his wife’s hands, what looked like a duck. There was a distinct beak, no doubt. Then she got the shape right, and it made his skin crawl. A baby penguin was walking on the wall.
THE PUPPETRY CONTINUED FOR an hour more, and Bakul had no choice but to send the purohit home. Sick of seeing nonsensical shapes on the wall, he quietly slunk into bed and waited patiently for his wife to end the show. She eventually did, and even wished him good night, and he responded with a strained good night of his own.
Now, as Bakul lay sleepless, he thought of how the grief had not punished him the way
it had his wife. Then again, she had wanted a child with more ferocity than him. She had fucked him with the hunger of someone who needed air and water. And she had waited for Keshu for years, and had consulted the same purohit, who had said to her, “He will come.” And the boy did. The purohit got the gender right too. But now, for Reshma to latch on to something he’d said to console her…this was unholy.
Suddenly, Reshma sprang up like a spring.
“I want to show you something,” she said. She reached for her iPad, and its screen lit up the room with a phosphorescence that made Bakul think of caves. What this light would discover, or illuminate, was going to be eerie.
She clicked on a link that led to the Times of India:
PENGUIN AT MUMBAI’S BYCULLA ZOO DIES.
“Reshma…” Bakul reached his hand out, very slowly, to touch his wife. But she blocked his hand with hers.
“Bakul, please. If you love me, just see what it says.”
Bakul put the iPad in his lap. He felt as though he was holding something poisonous, something so pernicious that its bearer was doomed the minute he stared into its light. There had been eight Humboldt penguins at one point. Imports from Seoul. Last year, one of them had died. Before they even went on display, the penguins had lost a sister.
“That’s sad,” he said, “but I—”
“Greenish stools, Bakul.”
“What?”
“She had greenish stools.”
“So?”
“Before Keshu got sick, before the fever went berserk, his stools were green.”
Bakul sighed.
Reshma did not expect him to understand. She had hoped he would, but she did not expect him to. A mother’s love is always deeper than a father’s. A mother will go to any length to save her child, to bring him back. Men were weak; they did not go the distance. If they could, nature would have endowed them with the ability to bear life, to carry it within the womb like a small planet. What did Bakul know of love, of how Keshu had orbited in her belly for months? What did he know of the feeling it gave her, a sense of purpose so clear, devotion had a whole new meaning?