The Elephanta Suite

by Paul Theroux

  Alice's problems were small, but they were problems nonetheless. One was the memory of Stella's dropping out. Alice wanted to forgive her, but she could not rid her mind of the betrayal, and she remembered Zack trying to impress Stella, saying that his favorite line in How to Marry a Millionaire was the Marilyn Monroe one about maharajahs: "Think of all the diamonds and rubies. And all those crazy elephants." Stella had laughed, and now she had what she wanted.

  One afternoon, having ducked out of the ashram to be soothed by a visit to the Ganesh shrine, she decided to walk back to White-field. A taxi always meant bantering with the driver and having to answer too many questions. In an area of narrow lanes she passed the courtyard of an old house and saw what looked like a stable. The air was rich with sweet decay here. What she sniffed as a relief from the sourness of traffic fumes she realized was manure that had the density of compost, the powerful suggestion of a healthy animal and also of the fertile earth. She took a few steps into the passageway and saw a large dusty elephant.

  The smiling creature with the swaying trunk seemed linked to the deity she'd just prayed to, as if it were his living embodiment. She could not separate the two, but, having prayed, she saw this animal as the privileged answer to those prayers. His big staring eyes held her and seemed to fix her as an image, as though photographing her—certainly remembering her. As he stared, he danced from side to side, swinging his rubbery trunk. He reached toward her with the big hose-like thing and then lowered it, wrapped a broken stalk of sugar cane and clenched the pink edges of its nose holes, delicately plucking the fragment, and with one upward bend of the trunk popped it into his mouth and crunched it. He had teeth too.

  The elephant still swayed, holding Alice's attention like a promise fulfilled. And for the first time in India she did not feel lonely.

  She saw with sadness the collar of metal around the lower part of his left rear leg; the heavy chain was fastened with an iron spike. The elephant was male, yet he appeared to Alice like an enormous plain woman, chained to a post, overwhelmingly frustrated, murmuring to herself to get attention.

  "Ha!" A man stepped forward, wearing a dhoti like a diaper, and a badly tied turban, and sprayed the elephant with a hose.

  She decided to try the word that was in her mind. She pointed at the man and said, "Mahout?"

  He smiled, said, "Mahout, mahout," and went on spraying, and the elephant too seemed to smile.

  Alice lingered a little, watching the elephant being drenched, his gray dusty skin blackened by the water, thick and wrinkled, looking like cold lava. Then she clasped her hands, said "Namaste," and was delighted when the mahout returned her greeting and somehow encouraged the elephant to nod his great solid head at her.

  "You were missed," Priyanka said when Alice got back to the ashram.

  Priyanka had a haughty, well-brought-up way of speaking that annoyed Alice, not for its Indian attitude but its English pretension.

  The other young woman, Prithi, said nothing, but Alice knew what she was thinking.

  They were her friends, but not so close that she could tell them that she'd just made a new friend. They were a little older than she was, Prithi a runaway fiancée, Priyanka a runaway bride. Told that a husband had been selected for her in an arranged marriage, Prithi had been rescued by Priyanka and had found peace here under the benign presence of Sathya Sai Baba.

  Priyanka had her own story, another arranged marriage, but to an abusive husband, in a house with a nagging, possibly insane mother-in-law. She had suffered it for two years and then done the unthinkable—slipped away, disgraced her parents, infuriated her in-laws, and hid here. The ashram was her refuge. Although she was damaged, scandalous, unmarriageable, she was safe. And she had money.

  Prithi also had money. She said to Alice, "Until I was seventeen, I had no idea there were poor people in India. I thought everyone lived like us, in a big house, with servants and a driver and a cook and all the rest of it, surrounded by flowers. I thought our servants had lots of money. Their uniforms were beautiful."

  "Your father probably bought them their uniforms," Alice said.

  "May I finish?" Prithi smiled in annoyance. "I wanted to walk home from school one day. The other girls weren't met by a chauffeur, as I had been all my life. The driver begged me to get in. He called me on my mobile, but I refused to answer, and I walked home while the car followed me." She folded her hands primly. "So there."

  "I don't get it."

  "I saw how people lived. Not like us. It was quite a shocker."

  But Prithi said that she still had never been on an Indian bus or train. She had flown to Bangalore from Mumbai and had not left the ashram for eight months.

  So it seemed more and more to Alice like a nunnery, yet with none of the fear, no talk of salvation, nothing of sin, no rejection of the outside world; simply the pleasure of being in a safe and loving place, among happy people, where everyone was accepted. Not like an organized religion at all, but perhaps like the first followers of Christ, the people who had been so moved by the Sermon on the Mount they had left houses and families to follow the Master and to witness miracles.

  Swami performed miracles, always reluctantly, which made them more startling, and always with a smile. He had a magic ring: cookies materialized in his hand for children, and sometimes money. The devotees applauded, as though at a party trick, and Alice realized they were like the earliest Christians, whose heads were turned by Christ's words and his marvels, not seeing him as a figure foretold by Scripture or a human sacrifice, the Lamb of God, but a handsome man with a new voice, a beautiful spirit, a reformer, a liberator, someone who was able, in the most memorable words, to make sense of the world.

  "I love Swami," Alice told them.

  "We were worried—isn't that so, Prithi," Priyanka said. "You have such a good education. You are so independent and strong. Such people seldom tarry here, you know."

  "I feel that we are here at the beginning," Alice said, still thinking of the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount. "Seeing Swami in the flesh. Hearing him at the darshan. I love watching him nod and smile as we chant the bhajans."

  "Yes, we're lucky," Priyanka said. "I see that life has a meaning. Even my divorce has a meaning. It allowed me to come here."

  More time passed, some weeks perhaps, and one day both women approached Alice while she was sweeping the room.

  "We have something for you," Prithi said.

  She took her hands from behind her back and presented Alice with a large cloth pouch, decorated with small round mirrors sewn to it, a piece from Rajasthan, red and orange, glittering on Alice's lap.

  "It's great," Alice said.

  "Open it."

  Alice untwisted a woven cord that held it shut and saw that it contained a soft brick of rupees, held together with rubber bands. Because they were worn and dirty they seemed somehow tested and proven to be especially valuable.

  "I can't take them."

  "Yes," Priyanka said. "You must."

  "But you don't have to keep them," Prithi said. "You can give them to Swami."

  "Swami doesn't want money—he says so all the time. 'Where money is asked for and offered, I have no place.' I love him for that."

  "It is one of his most spiritual qualities," Prithi said. "But still, ghee butter costs money. Pulses cost money. That broom."

  Alice was holding the broom in one hand and the chunk of money in the other. She said, "Yes, he can buy some more brooms!"

  A day or two later Alice realized what the women had done. They were helping her pay her way, giving her the money as an oblique present so as not to embarrass her. One of the devotees was always passing the hat—actually, it was a brass bowl—and the residents putting money in. Alice usually slipped in a one-hundred-rupee note—about two dollars. This had been noticed.

  She had believed that sweeping and washing and tending to the pots of flowers and weaving garlands for Swami were enough. But no—it seemed you had to pay.

  Thi
s face-saving gesture, done so sweetly, saddened her. She had come to India in a spirit of renunciation, looking to Swami—with the help of Ganesh—as an example. Stella had hindered her in her quest; Alice saw that after Stella had gone off with Zack. But this need for money was a surprise, because she wanted to go on living at the ashram, and clearly she could do that only by getting a job somewhere in Bangalore. Well, wasn't that why most people came to Bangalore?

  "I'm looking for a phone," Alice said to Priyanka, slightly distracted by the way Priyanka ate—using her fingertips on the chapatis, but one-handed, eating with the fastidious concentration of a watch repairer.

  Priyanka let her fingers hover and dangle while she looked at Alice with amazement, as though she'd asked for a forbidden thing.

  "Whatever do you require a phone for?"

  "The usual thing," Alice said.

  "Idle phoning is discouraged by Swami."

  "Who said it was idle?"

  "Phones are frivolous, Swami says. Ashram is complete and self-sufficient. He is the only link we need."

  "Maybe I want to phone Swami," Alice said, and she could tell that she was becoming angry in her sarcasm.

  "He won't pick up."

  "I thought you had a cell phone. You mentioned it once."

  Priyanka smiled while she chewed her mouthful, then she dabbed her lips. "I left my mobile with Daddyji. He was flabbergasted."

  "My daddyji doesn't even know where I am," Alice said.

  "Phoning parents is discouraged by Swami."

  Alice said, "Why am I a little sorry we had this conversation?"

  And it occurred to her that had Priyanka known whom and why she was planning to call, she would have been even more scolding and unhelpful.

  She put on her walking shoes and sunglasses and went to the main gate—the gatekeeper saluted—and she walked along the busy road on the broken sidewalk, stepping past the fruit vendors, who were crouched on low stools, selling oranges and mangoes. She had not gone thirty yards when she saw three or four storefronts advertising telephone services, International Calls—Best Rates—Fax and Internet Connectivity, with lists of countries and prices per minute.

  After the solitude and order of the ashram, the street—and this was right outside, just over the wall—was startling in its dirt and disorder, the hawkers crowded against the wall of the ashram, people seated at small tables selling picture frames and pens and cheap watches and hair ornaments. It was a relief to see someone selling fresh flowers, a pile of marigold blossoms, but the rest of it was a bazaar of cheap merchandise. The shops that lined the road sold rubber tires and shoes and clocks and sacks of beans and rice and spices. At one storefront a man was mending shoes, at another a boy was on his knees, his forearms streaked with grease, laboring to fix a bike. The large number of pedestrians made it hard for Alice to walk, and when she dodged them to buy a bag of roasted chickpeas, cars honked at her. She thought of turning back, yet she had to make the call.

  "What country, madam?" the clerk said, showing her an assortment of phone cards.

  "India." Alice handed over the business card. "Right here. Bangalore."

  "Is mobile number, madam. Better you purchase card."

  She bought a three-hundred-rupee card, feeling that she was being cheated—the man claimed he had nothing smaller. Could that be true?

  Feeling helpless—Indians fussing around her created that illusion—she waited while the clerk dialed the number.

  "Ringing, madam." He handed Alice the phone. Once, long ago, a phone like this had sat on a small table in Alice's house: black, solid, heavy, but always a small voice issuing from it.

  "This is Shan."

  That's what it sounded like, an Asiatic name but with the twanging palate of a forced American accent.

  Alice was so surprised by the voice she could not respond.

  "How can I help you? Is there anyone there? Hullo?"

  The voice was extraordinary—nasal, the mouth wide open, the suggestion of a smile in the tone, and though it had an American sound, something unnatural subverted it, so that it was hardly human, a cartoon voice. Alice was reminded of a parrot—a mimicky voice, as if the speaker had no idea what he was saying, just uttering words in a tortured way, swallowing and gargling.

  "I think I have the wrong number."

  "Who are you wishing to speak to at this time?"

  The singsong was odd too, the whole effect so weirdly comic that Alice did not put the phone down.

  "I'm calling Amitabh."

  "This is Amitabh"—still, in an American accent, the name was approximate.

  "I thought you were Shan."

  "I'm at work. I'm Shan at work. Who am I speaking to, please?"

  "This is Alice—from the train. I wanted to talk to you about something."

  "I'm on late shift till three A.M. Can we maybe meet tomorrow?"

  The voice was still bizarre. Was it really him? "I guess so. Can you come to Whitefield?"

  "Sure thing. Whitefield! Now I remember. You're the Sai Baba woman from the first AC compartment."

  "That's me," but she thought, Sure thing? Then she saw a sign, Vishnu Hotel and Lunch House, and read Amitabh the address. He took it down expertly, then read it back to her.

  After she hung up she kept walking, away from the ashram. It was too late to line up for the darshan—she'd be at the end of the line, at the back of the hall, Swami barely visible. She had a better idea. She felt a need to make a superstitious gesture, and so she waved down an auto-rickshaw and gave the driver the address of the elephant's stable.

  She liked the side street, the quiet gloom from overhanging trees, the archway to the courtyard stable, the sight of the elephant's hindquarters. He was snatching at hay with his trunk and stuffing it into his mouth, but when Alice approached the elephant lurched, his chain clanking, and he swung around and nodded at her.

  Now she saw the mahout with a hayfork, piling the fodder near the elephant.

  "Namaste," Alice said, clasping her hands.

  The mahout held the hayfork with his knees and returned the greeting. He then beckoned her closer.

  Alice said, "I know you have no idea what I'm saying, but thank you. I need a job, I need some money. I am here because I love this elephant."

  The mahout smiled, the elephant smiled, the odor of manure was sweetish, the stable was shadowy, cool with the aromas of drying hay.

  Alice held out some roasted chickpeas for the mahout, and he took some, but instead of eating them he poked his hand toward the elephant's trunk and allowed them to be seized from his hand. The elephant swung his trunk backward and blew the chickpeas into his mouth and then reached for more—not toward the mahout but, in a show of cleverness, lifting his trunk toward Alice and seeming to gesture with his twitching nose holes, wrinkling the pink flesh around them. A faint stink reached her from the holes at the tip of his trunk, a gust of sour breath.

  "Here you go, darling." She held the chickpeas in the flat of her hand and let the elephant scoop them up.

  The mahout nodded and went back to forking hay, the elephant to eating it. But she could see that the elephant was looking directly at her with his great round eye.

  "Thank you, thank you. Namaste."

  The mahout waved the hayfork and Alice thought, He looks like Gandhi. She returned to the ashram refreshed, at peace, as though she'd visited a holy place.

  And the next day she slipped out to meet Amitabh. He was waiting at Vishnu Hotel and Lunch House, seated at a table, holding a cup of tea and studying his cell phone, perhaps reading a number and wondering if he should answer. There was no doubt that it was Amitabh—smiling, fat-bellied, fleshy arms and big brown cheeks and beautiful eyes.

  "Hi," he said. "Take a chair. This is real positive, seeing you."

  The tone of voice belonged to someone else—the words, too. Yet he was smiling as he spoke—this was a novelty. His mouth was set in a grin, and he was open-mouthed as he twanged at her.

  "How lon
g has it been? Like six weeks or more?" He was sipping tea, sucking it through his open mouth.

  "I don't even know how long," Alice said. "I wanted to ask you a few things. Looks like you got the job."

  "The job, yeah"—he said jahb. "I was working when you called. That's why I gave you my work name."

  "Which is?"

  "Shan."

  She said, "Would that be anything like Shawn?"—seeing it as Sean.

  "You got it. Shan Harris."

  "You have two names?"

  "Don't you? You sure do! It's kind of strange. My mother calls me Bapu. It means Dad!"

  She said, "Amitabh, why are you talking like this?"

  "American accent? That's my job just now, at the call center. I'm a consultant—working toward being an associate."

  "For a company?"

  "We service Home Depot."

  Alice had heard of such jobs, but this was the first time she was seeing an employee at close quarters. She said, "Good news. That's great."

  Because she was thinking: His accent is grotesque. I can do much better than that—and smiled at the thought of operating a phone at a call center in Bangalore, fielding calls from Rye and Bedford, maybe people she knew, though she didn't know anyone who shopped at Home Depot.

  Amitabh said, "How can I offer you excellent service?"

  She almost laughed but thought better of it. She said, "I need a job."

  "Have a cup of tea," Amitabh said. "Then tell me what you want to do."

  Over tea, Alice explained that she was short of money. She said that she had been an English major but was computer-savvy.

  "I'm open to doing anything," she said.

  Amitabh's face gleamed at this. He savored it, working his mouth, then said, "You got a good attitude. Plus, it's my day off. Let's get a taxi."

  Waiting for the taxi, Amitabh made a call on his cell phone. When he used his thumb to end the call, he said, "Plus, you're real lucky. Miss Ghosh is interviewing today. They have a major manpower need."

  She was glad that there was no delay, that she would not have to report to the ashram and hear "Swami doesn't approve." As this thought turned in her mind, Amitabh asked about Swami.