Six five. There’s a discussion about it. Good enough.
Thirty-two thousand, rounded down.
Smoke in the room now, everyone getting blasted, chillums being smoked empty, cleaned with cloth that’s torn into strips, repacked, bom Shiva, lit. One of the men picks up the machete from the bed. He says it belonged to another guy, another Israeli, not in their group though, a guy who smoked too much, didn’t have the right head, had a bad temper, cracked. They were at the beach one morning after a party, it was in Goa at the start of April, the season was ending, the music was still playing in the jungle not far away, and this guy, he was sitting at the edge of this group in the sand, spaced out, coming down. And then this cow … This cow is behind him, coming towards him, trying to get into his bag, you know, poking its head around, flicking out its tongue, the flies are around it. He has some food in his bag. The cow wants the food. This guy is pushing it away, cursing it, pushing it with his hands, but every time he pushes it, it just keeps coming back again. And this guy is getting angrier and angrier. His, how do you say? His patience, you know, it’s not so good.
People in the room start to laugh.
So what does he do? His temper goes, OK. He gets up, he’s had enough, he empties his bag on to the sand, dumps everything out, everything in his bag, and looks at the cow and he shouts at it, in Hebrew, he’s saying, Go on then, fucker, eat it. Eat everything. And the cow, it just keeps going on, doesn’t know what he’s saying, it keeps coming forward and starts eating. There is some banana, a piece of bread. And everyone around is laughing. Everyone thinks it’s fucking funny, you know. But what else is in the bag? This fucking machete. So what does he do? He picks up the machete. It’s also on the ground. Boom. He puts it into the fucking cow’s neck. Right into its fucking neck. This guy’s crazy, you know. He puts the machete right into the neck. Crack. You see the bone and the meat and the blood. Blood everywhere. Everyone who was laughing, now they’re jumping up from the sand. What the fuck? Are you crazy, man? But he keeps going. He’s taking the head off, there’s blood everywhere. There are locals on the beach, fishermen, chai sellers. They’re all watching this. They’re not happy. Oh no. And before you know what’s happening, a crowd is forming, they’re watching this like they don’t believe their fucking eyes. This cow is fucking dead and everyone else is backing away from him and he’s there with the cow. Then he kind of, you know, wakes up, he looks around. There’s this dead cow on the ground and he’s standing there and these locals are all staring at him. This guy is thinking, Fuck.
People start laughing in the room.
And he’s running. Running for his life. There’s all these locals after him, and they’ve got knives and machetes and sticks and he’s running away from the beach, towards the trees, he’s gone over the bushes, into the trees, and the locals are charging after him. He vanished. Never seen anyone run so fast, not even in the middle of a war. We never saw him again.
Now he holds the machete in the air, touches the chillum to his forehead. Says, Cow-killing machete motherfucker.
With coke in my blood and my brain I take to driving fast into the night. I drive through Lutyens’ Delhi. The thrill of a straight road, of regular street-lights ticking like a metronome, the steady purr of the engine, changing down gears, suddenly coming to a stop at the red light. Two men pull up alongside me on a bike.
They look inside the car. I know the wild excitement they must feel when they see me alone in here. The bike’s engine revs. And the light is still red. So do I drive? Do I look at them? The last thing I should do is look at them. I turn my head and I look at them. As soon as I do their eyes widen in pleasure and the passenger grips the rider’s waist, holds him and says something into his ear. The bike veers away in a loop. It loops to the left, off behind me, and it pulls back louder and faster a moment later alongside my driver’s window.
Like a kennel of dogs they howl and bang on the glass with the palms of their hands. Then the pillion rider tries to open the door.
Although the light is still red, I put my foot down on the gas. I’m screeching off, along Akbar Road towards India Gate. The motorbike does the same, following me at speed, racing with me, pulling up alongside my window, dipping behind, flashing its lights and beeping the horn, and I can hear the men wailing on top of it. The road ahead is empty, the wide road deserted, shrouded by the overhanging trees—I accelerate into it.
Around India Gate they’re still on me. I twist round Tilak Marg and accelerate hard out of the bend. A few cars pass on the other side. Ahead at the crossroads by the Supreme Court the light is red. I see the bike coming to my side and jerk towards it, forcing it to brake. Then I take my chance and floor it, drive straight through the light and the traffic.
Behind, in the mirror, I watch the bike being hit by a car side-on at speed, a police van far behind with flashing lights, and the bike and the men spilling out on the road.
I dreamed of him last night, and in the dream he came back to life. He didn’t even know that he’d been dead. It’s the guilt that’s doing this to me I suppose, the guilt of resurrecting him. Of making him over, using his likeness and sculpting him like a piece of clay.
In the dream he’s following me around, all over Delhi, begging me to take him back, like a fool, to let him be with me. He looks exactly as he did, the same clothes and hair, the same age. But he is calmer. Infinitely sadder because of this.
He doesn’t remember the things he’s done so he can’t understand why I won’t have him. He begs me, he’s close to tears. I feel pity for him. I try to let him down gently, tell him it’s impossible. I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s been dead, that more than ten years have passed. He doesn’t seem to notice that I’m older than him now. He seems so ordinary, without power. And he continues to beg all the while, hands wrung. He says, I won’t make a sound, I’ll be by your side, I’ll follow you everywhere, make you happy, do anything you say.
We leave the Israelis at midnight. He has a weight behind his reddened eyes. He drives around in silence, we drive through the night and he drinks and he smokes and he drives, but he doesn’t talk to me and he won’t let me go home. I fall asleep in the car. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.
Then it’s light outside, men are clearing their throats, retired colonels are taking their morning walks. I’m sure they can see me, that they all know. We drive and we park and we climb upstairs to go home.
Once inside he goes straight to the computer, sits there in silence typing away, talking in a chat room, looking at porn, drinking the whole time, smoking joint after joint. He doesn’t look at me, still doesn’t talk. I stand in the middle of the living room waiting for him to speak, but he doesn’t speak. I go to bed and hug the pillow and try to sleep.
When I wake he’s sitting at my side with a bottle of whisky in his hand.
He looks at me tenderly and strokes my face. He says, You’re just like a stupid fucking college girl.
I pull the sheets around me and turn away. I tell him to leave me alone, ask him why he has to drink all the time. He only gets up and walks back outside.
I go out and he’s on his computer again.
What are you doing?
He doesn’t reply.
I go towards him and he puts his hand on the monitor switch. When I get close enough he switches it off so I can’t see what he’s been looking at.
He turns to face me and smiles.
I slap his face. I slap it again, I punch his arms and chest and pull at his hair. He watches me and just smirks. I tire, I’m suddenly exhausted, so I sit down on the sofa, and when I do he switches the monitor on again.
Enraged by this I storm over to him. I lift the monitor in my arms and threaten to throw it to the floor, the whole thing. I’ll do it, I say. Don’t try to stop me.
He looks at me and says that he won’t. So go ahead. Do it. Go on.
I say I will. I’ll do it right now.
Do it then. Go on.
I ma
ke a motion to throw it down but he doesn’t react.
There are tears in my eyes.
He says, I’m waiting. Do it.
I don’t do it. I can’t. Instead I put it down and get my bag and head to the door. When I’m out and halfway down the marble stairs he calls out to me from above. I look back up to see him standing at the apartment door, smiling at me strangely, wires trailing behind him, the monitor in his arms.
His smile wilts as he lifts and then hurls the monitor through the air. It smashes by my feet on the ground.
The NRI rejected me too, after all was said and done. No reason was given, his family only made their polite excuses to Aunty on the phone. She was troubled, defeated. She said then that it was over, she had tried her best, she had always done what was right, but enough was enough. Now it would be better if I graduated and found a job, and maybe with a job I could look for another place to live.
The first man I pick up is in the coffee shop of the Claridges hotel. I’ve given up our old places. Given up the apartment with those people inside. There’s nothing left of him but me. I want to go where we have no memory.
He’s German, sandy blond and blue-eyed, almost a stereotype, with a face that’s unmemorable and is saved only by his clothes, which give him a pardonable air of wealth. He must be in his late thirties—a powder-blue shirt and cream linen suit. He walks in and he’s waiting to collect a cake for someone’s birthday party, a niece maybe, or the daughter of a friend. Or maybe his own child. The cake is pink. While he’s waiting for it to be packed he’s starting to look around the room. I’ve been watching him from my table since he walked in, looking to be looked at. He sees me, makes eye contact for a moment, turns away. It’s not five seconds before he comes back again.
Because I’ve continued to look, he decides to come over to the table. He approaches casually, asks if he can sit down while he waits. He’s very polite. I tell him he can do as he likes. Now I see the tan line of his absent wedding ring.
Adjusting himself in his seat, he asks me where I’m from, and when I say I’m from Delhi he acts surprised. He says he’s never met a girl from Delhi like me, he thought I was a tourist. It’s hard to speak to girls here, he says. His cake is brought to the table but he makes no effort to leave. I sit and let him talk. He tells me he’s on a business trip, that he works as an analyst in corporate finance and he’s often in Delhi and Bombay, sometimes in Bangalore.
He spends an unnecessary half hour talking me into bed with him, trying to impress me with self-deprecating humour, with innocuous joking barbs followed by earnest praise. Are you here alone? Did you drive here today? I bet you’re a terrible driver, aren’t you? I bet you crash all the time. No, really, I’m sure you’re far better than me on these roads.
This kind of thing.
Delivered in a German monotone.
It’s all very dull, very by the book. He tells me I have beautiful eyes. Finally he asks if I’m a guest here. No, I reply, I was just sitting, having a coffee on my way to see a friend.
It excites him that I’m from the city. He thinks he has to make a special effort with me, he thinks he has to tread carefully, he has a rare chance, and a thing for brown skin. He tells me he has a room here in the hotel and he has to go out later for this function, but he’s enjoyed talking to me, maybe I’d like to have a drink with him beforehand? I keep him waiting a moment, then smile and say, Why not? Encouraged, but not without trepidation, he asks if I’d also maybe like to come to his room.
We walk through the lobby and along the corridor side by side in a guillotine silence. As soon as we’re inside he’s fumbling at me, holding his hands to my waist, pressing his thin lips into mine, pushing me against the door, moving me towards the bed. Detached, out of my body, I let him do all this without a word. I begin to remove my clothes, and lie down on the bed. I let him do it to me and his breath is vile. When he’s finished he climbs off without a word, goes into the bathroom. He’s still there when I put on my clothes and walk out the door.
The next day he disappeared. I turned up at his apartment to find the door locked and the locks changed and his phone switched off. There was an air of finality about it.
Still I banged on the door and rang the bell, waited for an hour, calling his number over and over. I sat outside in my car another two hours before giving up and driving home.
Every day that he’s gone I turn up at his apartment, for ten days I call his phone and it’s the same, the apartment is locked, the phone dead. There’s no one to speak to, nowhere to go. I feel completely alone. I drive past his place every morning before I go to college, in limbo, undone.
On the tenth day he calls me, casual as anything, saying he’s home, asking to know where I am, why aren’t I coming over? No explanation, nothing. No acknowledgement he’s been away, been unreachable. Come over, he says. I tell him I can’t, it’s too late. I ask where he’s been and he just murmurs. His voice has a strange, hollow edge.
When I turn up at his flat the next day there’s a Star of David hanging above the outer door, and inside a giant UV painting of Shiva on the wall. He has Ali with him now. Ali is the one who answers the door. Just like that. He appears, his new companion. Ali lets me in. He seems to know who I am.
Ali is a good man, he’s loyal to a fault, but he likes his drink as much as anyone else. He leads me into the living room, to where his master is. I point at Ali and say, Who’s this? And as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world he says, It’s Ali. No clarification, no smile.
We sit in silence for half an hour, the three of us, Ali embarrassed and ashamed in front of me. He pours himself drink after drink. I see him suddenly. I see that his face is bloated, unrecognizable to me. I get up to leave and he grabs my arm. I pull myself away.
I meet the Businessman in September in the bar of the Taj Mansingh. It seems I am drawn to this place. Half an hour later I’m in a suite taking off my clothes.
Seated at the bar, I know I’m being watched. I’ve taken to sitting in these hotel bars in the afternoons with a drink in my hand, perched on the bar stool, my face perfectly calm. It’s always peaceful at this hour, but then the men come over to me soon enough. Vulgar men, fat and rich men, drunk men, the sons of men. Delhi is rotten with the sons of men. I rarely even look at them. Sometimes they become angry and insult me.
But the Businessman is different. He’s watching with distance, trying to place me, to work out what I’m doing here. I watch his reflection in the mirror behind the bar, see myself there too. He’s in his late thirties. Handsome, well dressed, some grey forming on his temples, lines appearing on his once-smooth forehead. Wide eyes slightly downturned on a beautiful face, giving a melancholy look. A narrow nose, a pretty mouth, already some stubble after shaving. A youth misspent, callow and privileged, but not without its own pain.
He’s been groomed for a life of power. But he has another power that is not the same as wealth and privilege, something inscrutable, a trick of genes or God, a power that exists parallel to the one that all these men have. He doesn’t rush it. There’s no threat anywhere. I see this in the way the barman brings him his drink with cautious respect, and the way he accepts it as if this is the most natural thing, without thanks or apology. He looks at me in the mirror.
I light a cigarette. The barman brings an ashtray for me. The Businessman lights one himself. I already know what will happen next. It’s something we can feel easy about. So I smile in the mirror. The room is dim and quite empty in the afternoon.
He walks over, asks very properly if I’m waiting for someone. No, I reply. No one.
In that case would I mind if he sits?
I say I don’t mind.
He raises his hand for the barman to bring him another drink.
But you’re not a guest. He says it as a statement instead of a question, as a fortune-teller might.
No.
He waits for me to go further and when I don’t he smiles and smells the whisky he’s been ser
ved, brings it to his lips. We look at one another in the mirror.
He’s a Delhi man, that’s for sure, though not the kind Aunty dreamed of. He sips his drink and looks at me. He says, What are you doing here?
Nothing, just sitting, killing time. There aren’t many places to sit in the city.
He asks where I’m from.
I say I’m from here.
Am I in college?
I’ve just finished. Now I’m looking for work.
In the suite we stand and look at one another for a long time. I go into the bathroom for a line. It’s nothing like love or desire. Just the urge to destroy.
I make sure he knows nothing of my life. I remain a mask to him, superior. He says he can’t understand where I’ve come from, that I’m a dream turned into flesh.
September 11. Everyone remembers what they were doing this day. I was with the Businessman in a hotel room, fucking, doing coke. He takes his shoes off and places them neatly at the side near the minibar. The lights are low, the plate-glass window shrouded with a curtain like the kind covering a stage. Lutyens’ Delhi is outside, cars forever going round the traffic circles. The TV is on, the sound turned down, and night is coming upon us. We come to this room and fuck for hours. We are doing this, he is trying to possess me, climb into me, open me up, but he can’t, however hard he tries. And then the towers are on TV, collapsing, and everything stops.
A Bad Character Page 11