Bombay Blues

by Tanuja Desai Hidier

  Something jiggered then, in peripheral vision: To all outsiders, we were seated securely within the frame, talking about me and Karsh. But somehow, for just a flutter, we were speaking of the two of us, can’t-touch-the-bottoming in this bar, this uncity, unbeknownst yet known, and a moment, perhaps once experienced … or still to be experienced.

  —It’s all in the way you look at it, he added.

  I nodded. —We should know. We’re photographers. All we bloody do is find all the ways to look at it.

  Our hands were inches from each other. His on his knees, bunched up on the barstool, mine gesturing vaguely just above them.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I’d dropped them and taken both of Cowboy’s in my own.

  Oh.

  They sure had a lot going for them, those hands. They were warm, they were strong. They knew how to use a camera.

  In the eternal split second I began to wonder at my rashness, he’d intertwined his fingers through mine and given me a little squeeze.

  And I don’t know where it came from — perhaps I sensed an ending of sorts in this beginning — but what emerged from my mouth was a question viscerally painful to utter:

  —Why does death — someone’s actual death, or just thinking about your own — make some people want to renounce the world … but it makes me want to just run up to it, into it? Throw my arms around it?

  —Throw your arms around it, then, Cowboy said quietly. —What’s the worst that can happen?

  I suddenly felt shy.

  —I don’t know. It won’t hug back?

  He smiled at me and shook his head.

  And then he hugged me.

  And — pressing every inch, iota back into him, almost as if swapping skins — I hugged back.

  We rose up, a unit now. Walked through the bar, across the silvering terrace, which seemed much easier to navigate this time, and out the door onto the tilt-a-swirling street. The night was inky blue, writing us.

  —Do you want to take a walk? he asked.

  —I’d love to, I said.

  But, much to the simultaneous irritation and voyeuristic thrill of the passing ricks, it took us almost an hour to leave that Union Park side street.

  Landmark: strangers kissing. Not walking. Not strangers. Still kissing.

  Did it count if it was in another country? An uncountry?

  I had a feeling it did.

  His car was round the bend, a sea-green Jeep. “If You See Her, Say Hello” was playing now, and he and me, we were like that other album cover, The Freewheelin’, Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan, shot on the corner of West 4th and Jones in ’63. A photograph, they’d said (Janet Maslin, actually) that had inspired countless young men to hunch their shoulders, look distant, and let the girl do the clinging.

  But here in this stick shift, it was Cowboy who reached over with his left hand and caught my own, wove it with his. A no-cling connection.

  —I can drive with one hand, he said, smiling. And he did, pulling out from curbside. I could hold one hand with two of my own, and I did.

  —Lands End? he asked now, another question underlying it.

  —You’re just on the other side? I asked slowly, answering it.

  He nodded.

  —Just when you cross, don’t turn around. But I’ve got a place by Union Park….

  Was that what he meant by “between places”? And then, he spoke the unspoked: —I can always circle back.

  Unmapping our way. We’d barely left the curb when I turned to him. I lay a palm to his cheek; he looked at me as if no one had ever done this, as if he couldn’t speak. So I did.

  —Always, I said. —Circle back.

  We backed up into the same spot. I could just about sidelong see the silhouettes of we, intertwined, zoopraxiscopic on that sidewalk. Ghosts from just moments before.

  Unmoored. If we’d been buoyant at the bar, now the farther we walked, the deeper we went. Sound drowned; a natural silence.

  No one on this little lane but us. He stopped now before a low-sloping bungalow, a topple of angles against eventide sky. Reached for his keys.

  Just before entering: winged fin fleck. A tiny blue girl brushstroked upon doorframe, floating — floundering? — trying to hang on to something. Someone.

  —And one morning, she appeared out of nowhere, he said now, ease-opening the door. —In the sea. A fisherman dreamed her. And she somehow came to be.

  Whoever you want to be is who you are just waiting to happen. The me I just was: a mere frame away in a stop-motion series behind us. The she I would be: towing me over the threshold.

  Sandals kicked off. Tailwind, into that umbrous space.

  —All we have is now, he was saying.

  No presents, just your presence.

  —Let me see you, he was saying. —No labels, no borders. Really see you.

  Less full feathered, the first words to emerge from my mouth in millennia:

  —Naked, you mean?

  —Of course.

  I was shy … but Indie Girl took over.

  We stood before him, there on the edge of the bed. We thought about naked. Good naked: young and free, sure-gaited and foolhardy, ungainly yet graceful. Foal finding footing, headlong and headstrong.

  Trusting.

  Horses. I pulled Patti overhead, she, Robert, cascading to the floor. Girl overboard. And just like that, the me I was to be caught up with the rest of me.

  —That map, I said now, wonderfully nervous, terribly calm. —It’s kind of confusing, this city — Thirty-fifth Road almost slides into Thirty-fourth … yet nowhere near Thirty-sixth … then from Thirty-third you get Sixth, Seventh … follwed by Thirteenth. I mean, Manhattan’s easy. Mostly straight lines with a few bends and twists. But here …

  —A little at sea?

  He unbuttoned his deep tan shirt.

  —Very, I breathed. —It’s a diaspora thing….

  Our jeans cast to deck like midday shadows around our feet. We stepped out of them.

  —And then, I whispered. —Janata: Landmark: Five Spice. Five Spice: Landmark: Janata. Like, you can only get close, never quite there.

  He was running a finger along the upper hem of my boxers.

  —You can only get close, he whispered back.

  And then our second, and last, skins fell, all that had stood between us and … Us. His appreciative gaze — he was a photographer, after all — set me swiftly, mostly at ease. I stood still, basked in it.

  He was taking my hand, leading me down beside him onto, into the rippled bed. In-breath. And before the waters sealed over my head, a capsizing into that fathomless yonder, I knew what it would feel like: a moment’s panic, the fear of going under — and then, a baptism of desire, a willful whelming, lips up-hailing a goodbye message to the land I’d left behind.

  Was that shore really only inches, moments away?

  Skin to skin: a quickening. For the second time this evening, no feet on the ground. I lay on my back, unadorned. Unashamed. From the beginning, we’d gone straight to the inside after all.

  He was propped on his side, against me, head of sunbronzed-moonburned waves in one hand. He’d always been beside me. With his other hand, he drew my own through his fingers. He’d always drawn me through his fingers.

  —How does anyone ever know where they are here? I finally managed.

  —You have to feel your way. Once upon a time, this city was seven islands….

  He lay a palm on one of my shoulders, lightly squeezing it, then the other. —Bombay Island. Parel.

  Those fingers across my throat. Then just above my breasts.

  —Mazagaon.

  Just below them …

  —Colaba.

  One palm fell upon my stomach, kneading it, the other, breathtakingly upon my face, fingers tracing my mouth, which unhinged, no resistance.

  —Old Woman’s Island.

  That hand gliding (uninstructed!) up my nape, gently pulling up from the roots, then his other joining it.


  —Worli.

  I slid my own hands back to clasp his, and dukefuls of my hair with them. I recalled that neck of the woods was just on the other side. Then I recalled nothing as his lips followed the path of his palms in reverse: from the nape, up over my chin, to my own.

  Deep-sea kissing. His mouth had always been inside my mouth, mine in his. Direct communion: how to learn a language without speaking.

  He pulled up a moment, stared me long, wide in the face.

  —Exquisite, he whispered. I didn’t know what to say.

  —Where the bridge ends, I finally whispered back. I waved my arm to the right, where I believed The Other Side to be.

  He ran his hand along its length, intertwining our fingers at the end, pointing left along with me.

  —Correction: Seaface over there.

  Shifting our outstretched linked arms, he pointed us windowward. —Westward ho. And the sea’s thisaway.

  —Jai ho. Okay. But I’m not even quite sure where we are now….

  —Chuim Village. Landmark: You. Me. But the world’s our oyster. I’ll show you….

  He drew his hand back down and off my arm.

  —A macro view: Borivali, Goregaon, Andheri, he said, fingers pianoforte across my clavicles. I tried to blank out Andheri and what that connoted. It was surprisingly easy.

  —Airport.

  That hand not above, not below, but upon my heart now. I took a sharp breath, lay my own upon his.

  —Bandra.

  Then sliding it down my side, he wrapped my waist in his fingers — his whole palm halfway around it, nearly.

  —Matunga, Dadar.

  A firmer grip, pulling my hip into his navel.

  —Worli …

  Again? Where the bridge begins? Were we going in circles?

  Then fingertips were kissed …

  —Wadala Road, Chowpatty …

  … all the way to toe tips …

  —Colaba, he confided in my feet now (he could trust them not to tell). —Microview …

  And then he was not only mapping but imprinting this city onto, into my skin — indelibly, I had a feeling. I forgot about borders, boundaries. First base, second, a barrier at the waist — it didn’t seem sensical to draw these kinds of lines on flowering terrain.

  Fingers charting the lines, lips dotting them, tongues joining dots. Lexical scale; an elliptical geography.

  He licking a link from Vile Parle … to Santa Cruz … Khar Road …

  Then me, a retrace; minor detours.

  Hand back on my heart, but this time his mouth as well, and it was I who shuddered:

  —Bandra …

  We remained, allegretto, in Bandra a long moment, during which time it felt my nipples were going to firecracker from my breasts. But just before they did, he rolled over onto his back, unraveling me up onto his belly.

  —Mahim, he announced.

  Stretching out against him, it was I who added, —Junction!

  Horizontally, we aligned quite well, skylines sideways syncing, despite the discrepancy in our vertical heights.

  From the Gateway to Le Marais. What the hell. This was Unbombay.

  Very SLOWFROM THANE. His palm-up fingers pushing exploratorily in …

  Change: BADLAPUR. My palm pull-pushing those fingers …

  Even ASANGAON … I bent down to kiss him, deep as —

  He bit my upper lip.

  I buried my face in his neck. Endless inhale. Pheronomenal.

  —Exhale, he whispered. He lifted my face with both hands; I gazed into his own. Then, dramatically, his half-smile wholly vanished as he hip-holdingly heaved me onto it….

  Lower Parel. Now fingers lips were tongue: no distinction, talk about borderless —

  A little more Upper Worli, por favor; my own well-versed fingers joining in the fun …

  Something. Very. Strange. Is happening …

  Slip road leading into me: a condensening upsurge. But deep, deeper in: a taut widening, funny little inner suction-snap, quick strong wing flap —

  Combined, allargando: a weird whirlpooling up …

  … surfing the operatic apogee of a high-tiding wave …

  … a half-heartbeat’s sustained-note stillness, silence — and —

  Audible hiss. Malad Creek. The lakes: Powai! Vihar! Tulsi!

  And she was found floating in the sea …

  I was that kind of girl?

  Me: shudders, shivers; stunned. He: very still. For a moment, I worried I’d drowned him. I began to lift off, slide southside, when —

  —Wait, he managed to utter, coughing a little. —Where there’s one …

  Dream of a fisherman’s wife; I couldn’t believe how much I wanted to engulf every inch, moment of him. Of this. But who was I to deny him his evidently identical desire? It was —

  Oh … my … gods!

  A tickle, a flicker, an ache, a pulse, a sparkler, saltpetering —

  He, we: again. Suffusion from that slip road; inundated, levitatingly excavated shore. And it wasn’t the same river twice — this visit so flesh-bone-blood melding I half expected my entire lower half to have deliquesced by now.

  Only I had ever come even remotely close to doing this to me.

  I fell onto my back. A breather, his baited with mine: eyes into eyes — and this just as intense, more so, than any of it.

  A face I barely knew that I would never forget. And I could see he was memorizing me as well.

  I hoped he had a bad memory so he could memorize me again and again.

  Another long, deep kiss …

  Laying his full length upon me …

  Wrapping my legs around his back …

  Both of us tumbling back over.

  He on his back now. An arm’s-length detour into his own condomanic stash. But first my own lengthy detour (de force) onto his lengthy de tour. Then rising, pulling me up, then securely down onto his lap. A sumptuous conviction. Saddle swells; swaddling everything around him like my entire body had been built to snap around his in a heartbeat, pendulating together, instinctively close.

  All we could get was close. The outside in now; like remembering something — an old aching truth. Back to zero, no longer half. Can’t touch bottom: a melting math.

  We rocked there, very gently, like those buoys and boats that night at Cuffe Parade. He was hugging me so consummately his arms nearly doubled around me. And then, much as I wanted to stay steeped, buried deep in his skin …

  I needed to see him again. He, me.

  I dragged my face from his neck, gazed up at him. His every atom, or maybe even mine, seemed to have a gravitational pull; I was amazed the furniture wasn’t flying. We couldn’t stop staring into each other’s eyes. I couldn’t stop touching his face. He couldn’t stop touching me touching his face. Our combined breath sinking every other sound.

  The world now inside us, seaswellingly expanding …

  He sighed, all his muscles at last giving, then lay us both back down, turning to face me.

  —Together, he smiled, kissing me tenderly on the mouth. —Again.

  The tips of our noses touched. And still, that bluish-brownish haze of his eyes remained somehow indefinable, not to be captured.

  But looking into them — into the unknown — that’s where, once again, I found: myself.

  Me in his eyes, him likely in mine. Him in my body, my being; me — him.

  Incarnate. And I wanted to reincarnate. Encore again again. Freewheeling; no stops.

  —Goddess beneath our back, I murmured.

  Gur nalon isqh mitha hi hi!

  It sounded off, cell phone buried at the bottom of my bag but still audible.

  Gur nalon isqh mitha ho ho!

  I froze up. Cowboy immediately wrapped an arm around me. It was a tender act — which a moment later appeared near farcical as we both just lay like that, perfectly still in the dim, as a third inappropriately festive round dholed and drummed into the room.

  Gur nalon isqh mitha … !

 
; Frock, how many times had I set it to? Was it going to ring forever? I began to laugh a little hysterically. It just sounded so damn upbeat.

  Or maybe that was a sob, from the very gentle kiss on the forehead Cowboy gave me now. I sucked in all sound, looked away as:

  Gur nalon isqh mit —

  And finally silence, interrupted a beat later by a tiny ding to indicate a message had been left. The deeper silence of our hushed slowed breathing bobbing up.

  —Do you need to check that? Cowboy asked softly.

  I shook my head, tried to drain my mind. Above, a trio of blooms fogging corner post. Then I burrowed my face in his chest — hiding from myself in his heart’s hollow. But my ears still strained from that painfully joyful refrain of a song first heard what seemed many, many summers ago — one that hymned of a higher love I’d never imagined could bring me to such a crushing low.

  Despite his warm discernment, I felt utterly marooned.

  Random Bombay sounds rose up: a chidiya, a chaklee, a pipe groan; wheel.

  Below that, the hum of the room.

  And in my ear: Cowboy’s heart, thudding like falling fruit, belying his calm and calming exterior.

  With that ringtone, another more worn and weathered map superimposed itself on the one we’d been charting, uncharting.

  Karsh and I had made New York our own; I had made New York my own — through Chica Tikka, through life. All these experiences — there and here — collided now with such luminous intensity I squeezed my eyes shut, felt so searingly alive I worried I might be about to die.

  Petite mort. The French term for orgasm. That little death pierced the heart of my ecstasy, so poignant my stomach clutched. My life with Karsh passed before my eyes now, with all the hurtling focus of an express train….

  A subway ride to Dyckman and Broadway, Zara Thrustra’s on Seaman Avenue to pick up those blisteringly blue shoes. Heading back downtown, swinging around the sticky metal flu-catching poles — landing with a whomp on his lap with 125th’s sudden stop, he bruised but grinning: You pack a punch for a little thing. Morningside Heights; Harlem. 116th — Columbia University and that Hungarian coffeeshop, a porcelain plate of broken biscuits. Animal Blessings at St. John the Divine; bridled horse led to altar (or were these vahanas blessing us?). Cathedral Parkway; 86th — the jerky jostly math of a vampirically lit subterranean labyrinth. Museum of Natural History and never making it inside: a kiss that running-leapt us from missing-link dino-bird time to the present, our own planetarium of sparks flying off the Columbus Avenue sidewalk just before the elegant edifice. Four seasons of Central Park: mist fall-thick on Dipway, Driprock. Cross-country skiers up CPW; glacial trees fearless in their fragility, spraying icicled light miles like an arctic sprinkler. Daffodil delirium, a riot of rollerbladers heralding spring, clocks flinging themselves forward with wanton abandon. Lying on our backs, Strawberry Fields sun in our eyes, Shakespeare in the Park wherefore art thou, time stretching, literally longing, with summer.