As the credits rolled the two of them, with the rest of the dazed, blinking audience, allowed themselves to be herded along the plush carpet towards the exit.
The night was warm and moist. It was raining lightly; on the road, headlamps turned the drizzle into shreds of illuminated net. Narayan hovered close to Ashish, and smiled. The light caught his spectacles.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Which way are you going?’
It was obvious their routes diverged.
‘I’ll, uh, go to the station,’ Ashish said. His voice seemed fake to him, like a much younger boy trying to sound grown-up. He coughed.
‘Okay. I’ll walk as far as the traffic lights with you then I’ll go right.’
‘Sure.’
The road was slick with dirt and rain; street lamps and headlights gave the wet surfaces metallic accents. The world around was tired and irritated, trying to get home in a hurry, but Ashish was oblivious, despite the rickshaw driver who honked and missed his foot by inches, or the slowly moving carpet of cars, lorries, and buses that sounded their horns and whose drivers leaned out of the window to swear at each other.
At the junction, Narayan smiled again. ‘Well, it was very nice,’ he said. He seemed happy; his mood was light, like a child’s. Ashish responded equally cheerfully. ‘It was good fun,’ he said, a phrase dredged from memory; it must, he thought, have been used by someone more consistently chirpy than himself. At that moment he remembered that Sunder liked to say ‘good fun’. He felt a strange despair.
‘I enjoyed it,’ he said emphatically.
‘Good. So did I.’ For a second Narayan appeared to hover – but what possible salutation could they make, especially here, at the rainy, dirty junction near the flyover? ‘Well, see you in a few days,’ he said; he raised his hand and walked away. Ashish moved ahead to cross the main road before the station; he was conscious of not looking back, and felt a half-forgotten sentimentality. It had been nice, he thought, editing out the feelings of embarrassment. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed an evening this way.
‘But I don’t need anything from the market,’ Ashish pointed out. He continued, nonetheless, to trail after Madhavi. As ever, she walked purposefully.
‘So come to keep me company then.’ She gave him a dazzling grin.
‘All right, but just for a bit, I’m not following you round endlessly, I’ve got lots of study to do.’
‘Okay. And we can have coffee before we come back,’ she said.
The day was wet and dank-smelling, though it wasn’t raining. They scuffled through the inside lanes towards the market, and Madhavi got straight to the point. ‘So, it’s pretty cool about your uncle leaving you his flat.’
‘He’s not really my uncle.’
‘Who cares?’
‘Yeah.’ Ashish walked along, staring, out of habit, into the peculiarly dead windows of houses owned by respectable doctors and dentists. ‘But the thing is…’
‘What?’
‘It’s weird. I don’t even know why he left it to me.’
‘Oho. You mean he was trying to upset his family?’
‘Maybe.’ Satish uncle’s elegant, malicious face floated before Ashish’s eyes. ‘I mean, of course, he was always trying to do that. But why me?’
‘Rickshaw!’ Madhavi waved at a passing three-wheeler. It slowed and the driver, a thin young man, leered and raised an eyebrow. ‘Market?’ she enquired.
The khaki-clad driver made a derisory face and accelerated again; he didn’t think the short distance worth his while. Madhavi sighed. ‘Yeah, so…What were you saying?’ She pushed Ashish’s arm in a friendly way.
‘Why me,’ repeated Ashish, slightly irritably.
‘Yeah, true.’ Madhavi giggled. ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. Why you…hm. Wasn’t he close to your cousins?’
‘Sort of, he was fond of all of them, especially Megha, but he also had fights with all of them when they got older.’
‘Haan.’
‘But it’s not even really about that. I’ve met him as a child but recently just once or twice. I don’t understand.’
‘Does it matter? Are your uncle and aunt upset?’
They had reached the main road, and began to pick their way up it, shimmying closer to the inside edge of the pavement every time a large vehicle approached one of the many puddles.
‘No…I don’t think so…’ Ashish didn’t know how to express his strongest feeling, which was something like dread at being Satish uncle’s chosen heir.
They stopped at a crossing. Madhavi turned to him. ‘But Ashish – this is a really lucky thing for you. You could do anything now – you could sell the flat, or live there, or take a loan against it. You don’t have to worry about your future. Who does that happen to, at our age?’
‘My age,’ corrected Ashish, mindful of the two years’ difference.
‘Whatever. Chal,’ and she grabbed his hand, and, to his mortification, dragged him across the road.
They began to stroll up the main market street, pushed against and shoved into by more determined shoppers. Evening, and the various makeshift shops had rigged up their own electricity supplies; illicit wires ran in tangles from the electricity poles to each brightly lit small booth. Ashish, easily distracted, wandered behind Madhavi, gazing at the stall selling imitation, gold-plated jewellery, the stand spread with hair accessories, the pirated DVDs spread on a tarpaulin at the roadside.
‘Oh, nail file, I need to go in here,’ Madhavi muttered as they approached a brightly lit shop that gave onto the street. Just before she dived in, she turned to Ashish again. ‘The main thing is, what’s happened to you could only happen to someone really lucky. I hope you realize that.’
He waited for her just outside the shop, and looked into the passing faces, averting his own self-consciously if anyone stared back.
Her shopping done, Madhavi decided they should go for coffee.
‘All right. Udupi Cafe?’ Ashish said. He liked the dinginess of this establishment, which served south Indian filter coffee and snacks, and was always filled with plump couples, single, self-important old men, and groups of students.
‘Yuck, no, let’s go to the Idiot-Idiot.’ Madhavi was referring to a branch of the popular chain, which served many varieties of flavoured coffee, played loud music, and was the favoured meeting place for youthful couples to flirt tentatively and interminably.
‘No!’
‘Come on, I’ll treat you.’
‘That’s not the point –’
‘Come on then.’
‘Okay.’
They sat in the Idiot-Idiot, outside, under an umbrella; Ashish stirred three sugars into his cappuccino while Madhavi sucked contentedly at an Iced Coconut Freezz. A light rain fell; at the next table, three teenage boys talked loudly; one of them, who had bad skin, smoked a cigarette. Ashish inhaled the moist, sour-smelling air and remembered Narayan’s flat.
‘My tutor is really interesting,’ he told Madhavi.
‘Oh? That guy? How many times a week do you go?’
‘Three-four, it depends.’ Ashish began to smile.
‘Hm. And what does he do the rest of the time? He teaches a lot of other students like you?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ He pushed a couple of empty sugar packets around on the table. ‘He’s doing some research, he used to teach in the university.’
‘Oh. What’s his research?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘What’s his name again?’
‘Professor Narayan.’ He felt a pleasurable sense of embarrassment and secrecy just saying it.
She slurped at her shake. ‘What’s he like? Is he old? Must be married?’
‘I don’t think he’s married. Must be about forty. He’s interesting, I like him. I mean, he makes the subject interesting, not like the teachers in college.’
‘Achchha.’ Madhavi regarded Ashish, put her cheek on one hand, and gazed out at the rain.
Narayan was almost shaking with excitement.
‘Oh, okay,’ murmured Ashish, interested despite himself. He made a note in the exercise book on the coffee table (‘dramatic illusion’), felt thirsty, and wished Narayan would offer him water. The teacher took a sip from a glass on the side table next to him.
‘In fact the word “nothing”, if you look it up in the Concordance – you do know what a concordance is?’
‘No.’
‘It’s a book that lists all the instances of each word used, for example in the works of Shakespeare, or in the Bible.’
‘Oh.’
‘If you look up “nothing”, you’ll find many of the other uses of the word in Shakespeare carry a similar double sense. As well as meaning nothing, the word seems to connote that very quality of metatheatricality, dramatic illusion. I’ve often thought,’ he said, a little wistfully, a little proudly, ‘of writing a book about Shakespeare’s Nothing.’
‘Mm.’ Water, thought Ashish, perplexed, who didn’t offer a guest water? It was just basic manners.
‘The last lines of The Tempest are another example. “Oh brave new world, where we may have our music for nothing”. He’s talking about something commonplace, not having to pay the players – but I think the playwright’s also alluding to that sense of illusion. What would “music for nothing” be if you consider the phrase as independent?’ Narayan stared for a moment out of the window. ‘I’ve always imagined it’s something akin to the idea of maya. It’s only an illusion, but it has its own texture, its own experiences that are compelling for the souls who are trapped in it.’
Narayan’s face lit up, and Ashish smiled. It was hard not to feel that Narayan was talking principally to himself, but there was something sweet about his self-absorption. And he speaks so well, thought the boy affectionately.
Exasperation, followed by a flowering of good humour, passed over the teacher’s face. ‘But you must be bored,’ he said. ‘Come, do you want to go up to the roof? We might see the golden eagles. They often appear after sunset.’
On the terrace, Ashish was jittery with adrenaline. Narayan stood quite close; the cotton of his sleeve brushed Ashish’s arm. He smelled the teacher: a mild, soapy smell, reassuring, with faint traces of musk and cigarette smoke.
With the twilight the fragrance of champa flowers spread. Something else, too – the heady, sweet scent of parijatak.
Then, with a suddenness that couldn’t have been orchestrated, that was wild, two golden eagles alighted on the terrace. They perched atop the water tank, silently watching the city. Ashish craned his neck up. He wondered if something apocalyptic would happen; maybe an eagle would swoop past, taking out one of his eyes with a peck or a grab of those cruel claws. Instead, the birds remained until it was completely dark, and the two men below stayed to watch them, quietly, leaning their backs against the dusty concrete parapet where the yellowing paint flaked. Ashish’s arm was touching Narayan’s; the smell of the older man mingled with diesel fumes from the road below, something chemical and grainy in the wind, and the fading scent of flowers.
It became cooler; Ashish felt the breeze on his skin and looked at the lights below. Saraswati Park was somewhere down there, but very far away, smaller than a toy.
Narayan touched his arm. ‘Should we go inside?’ he said.
Ashish nodded. Then he realized it might be too dark for the gesture to be visible. ‘Sure,’ he whispered. He cleared his throat as they went down the steps. In the passage, the light had gone out.
The flat was a new place, an oasis of electric light. They blinked at each other. Narayan’s eyes flickered across Ashish’s face.
‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said. He went into the kitchen, and Ashish, after some hesitation, when he stood looking at the large Kal Nirnay calendar pinned up in the hall – big squares and bold black and red numbers for the dates – followed him. A strange thing then happened. When Narayan turned from the stove, where he had put water to boil, he saw Ashish and smiled. He came and stood right in front of the boy. The bright white light of the kitchen tube was hurting Ashish’s eyes and made him feel unreal. Narayan was very close. ‘So,’ he said, ‘your first sighting of golden eagles?’
Ashish met his eyes and felt inexplicably excited, as well as alarmed. He opened his mouth, and Narayan bent and kissed him.
Chapter Seventeen
The sticky man fell, attained a hold, then fell again. He was a creature of nightmare, his torso, arms and legs of blue plastic and his core a feeble string of red gel. When he fell, his jelly hands and feet reattached him, at the last, sickening moment, to the surface of the bookshelf. A little later gravity exerted its implacable pull: he began to topple again, his torso twisting sideways over his legs. Mohan pulled him off the side of the bookshelf and threw him against it once more.
Had it been the same young vendor on the train? In essence the boy was identical: enormous eyes, dusty skin, gummed-up lashes. ‘Spiderman, Spiderman,’ he’d urged Mohan, throwing the small toy against the wall of the iron compartment, where it began to stick and fall, stick and fall.
‘No, no.’
‘Spiderman, Spiderman.’ The child had looked as though he was about to cry. ‘Please take one,’ he said ritually. ‘It’ll be the first sale of the day.’
Mohan had been depressed; the idea that someone else’s needs could be fulfilled through him had struck him as pleasant. ‘How much is it?’ he’d asked.
‘Ten rupees. But if you want I’ll give it to you for five. Or two for ten.’
‘I don’t want two.’
The boy immediately detached a clear packet and gave him one of the toys: they came in lime green and bright blue. The one he gave Mohan was green. ‘No, give me a blue one,’ the letter writer said, for no obvious reason. The boy passed him the blue one. ‘Take both, two for ten, two for ten,’ he urged.
‘No, that’s it.’
The child took the note, one of the now rare azure five rupees, and touched it to his forehead, murmuring the name of his own particular saint or god. So the day had begun for him. And Mohan put the sticky man in his pocket and forgot about him, until a couple of days later, when he was throwing that pair of trousers onto the washing pile. He felt a bump and extracted the small packet.
February, and the dosa man in Saraswati Park had stopped wearing a sweater in the mornings and evenings; the watchman had left off the charcoal brazier that in winter glowed in his lap at night. The narrow advertisements under the luggage racks in the train were no longer for cold remedies, tonics and virility potions: now they had returned to offering miracle powders against prickly heat and haemorrhoids.
And Lakshmi had been gone for more than four months. He’d thought, of course, about going to Nagpur to see her; he’d asked her if she wouldn’t come home. But she’d explained, in a detached way behind which he wasn’t sure if he heard anger or nothing at all, that it was a help to her cousins for her to be there, looking after the sick man. Ashish’s exams were getting nearer; Mohan didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just leave the boy, even though Ashish seemed well – a little hectic, almost sparkling, sometimes, with a tired happiness – but well on the whole. His tutorials were helping, he said; they were revising the syllabus before the exams started in a few weeks.
The house was running, in its way, with the bai who came to clean and cook. He’d begun to look at the place with new eyes. What was all this clutter on the table? What about some of the books, the ones he never looked at? He didn’t know what to do with the books – impossible to give them to
the wastepaper man, but maybe he could sell them to the few booksellers who had reappeared near the American Express Bank. The table, at least, could be cleared. And by the time Ashish came in one afternoon from college, calling excitedly ‘Mohan mama!’, he’d done much of the work; the old jars, bottles and tins had been removed, and so had the paper and runners covering the table top. Now you saw its surface: the teak still somewhat silky, glowing reddish brown under scratches and stains.
‘What happened?’ Ashish asked. He held an afternoon paper in his hand and his face was bright.
‘Time to do some cleaning,’ Mohan said. He put down the duster and gazed at the field of his surprising victory; he’d made a pile of the leftover bottles and containers which he’d offer first to the bai, then sell to the junk man.
Ashish looked confused. But he persisted, and pushed the paper in front of his uncle. ‘See this.’
A small item on page nine said that of the entries in the Asian Council short story competition, one of those to receive a minor award, with a special regional mention, came from Bombay: an M. V. Karekar, for a story called ‘The Burning Ground’.
‘Isn’t this you?’
Mohan stared at the type. More than once he opened his mouth; then he said flatly, ‘There must be a mistake, I haven’t heard.’
But Ashish ran downstairs to get Madhavi to check on the internet, and they found the list on the Asian Council website. The organizers must have forgotten to get in touch with the entrants before they’d sent out the press release.
The next day at lunch time, Mohan got a call from a lazy, sleepy sounding person who yet managed to appear excited. ‘Mr Mohan Karekar?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m calling from the Indian Record. Mr Yezdi Sodawater-bottlewala gave me your number. It’s about the short story prize. We want to do an article on you for our Sunday feature, Hidden Treasures. Have you seen it?’ the voice enquired with a note of barely concealed pride.
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