Love and the Dark Night

SEVEN

The dog lay curled under a tree, while the pink scootie was parked on the edge of the pavement. The pavement lay in utter quietness, and light from the two streetlamps above flooded the entire neighbourhood with a soft dead glow full of silent cackling voices. The few scattered houses were asleep; the convenient store’s shutter down. 

I walked ahead, oblivious to the deep night around me; oblivious to this deep night moving along with me. Occasionally, a bandicoot scurried across the deserted road, stopping in the middle, giving furtive glances, twitching its nose before scurrying again and reaching the other gutter.

The road turned to the left. Pablo’s Cafe was closed, and through its glass door the fibre-glass case was pushed to the side, and the parasols and the tables and chairs pushed to the other corner.

On the pavement below the outer wall, the legless man was lying on a gunny bag, his bundle of clothes packed in a polythene bag under his head. He had the same clothes on. He gave an occasional murmur, where are you, crow, where are you, crow, and the whisper in my ear sounded audible as if someone was walking by my side, his mouth close to my ear, guiding my path. The legless man stirred in his sleep. My eyes travelled up to the tree, and several ravens, motionless, were sleeping. But one bird, the third one to the left with a ring around its neck opened its eyes, c****d its head to the left and gazed at me as I walked over the dark path.

All were there, and yet they were not there.  

And from this patch of solitude, someone with untidy hair, and a lemon coloured unkempt frock, peeped from behind a building.  And she was singing: I know you and I don’t know you/The road is hard but you can get there to the other side/That side the sun shines low, always low/And the moon is only a wanderer and has a gypsy story on its lips/It slips away away, far away before yu can wake up/And catch its moonbeams rustle the leaves of the yew trees.

I followed her, walking  up the foot over-bridge, the pedestrian-path, and stopped midway, looked to my left at the shut and bolted one-floor shop. The fruit vendors had left behind their shelves.

The one-floor shop, the shelves of the fruit vendors, all were there, and yet not there.

I stopped again and nodded. Nodded in the midst of everything-and-nothing. Some noise behind, and I turned my head, and had a glimpse of the girl, a lemon coloured frock girl behind me, concealing herself below the flight of stairs. But wasn’t she ahead of me, so how come this? Looking ahead, when I next turned, the girl was not anywhere around. But up ahead, she lay sprawled on the road. I went ahead and put my fingers at her nostrils. No breath.

I walked down the stairs, crossed the pillar, and hit the road. Wasn’t it in the middle of this road the lady was thrown out of the car? The r***d lady? I stopped, bent down at the spot she had last stood before boarding a taxi. She had a mass of shiny black hair, and she was holding her head with one hand while the other hand was on her abdomen. But as I continued looking at the slightly-rounded cheeks, the small mole below the chin, her eyes with a faraway look, my heart leapt to my mouth. I was staring at the face of someone familiar. Yes, Sinead O’Conner. I mean Anais. Instead of the lady, Anais was standing on the spot, complete with her shaved head, holding it with one hand, and her abdomen with the other. Next, Anais was lying on the pavement, patches of red on her head. Someone else was beside her, his arm around her. Anais’ hand was over his chest, I bent more forward. Yes, my face no doubt.

“What’s all this you are showing me? I said.

“Don’t worry.” The voice in my ear calmly said. “There’s more.”

Crossing the road, I stopped at a kiosk for coffee. After the first sip, my mind rested. Can I return to the novitiate in Wessex? I sipped again. Somehow, the smell of the beverage mingled with the wet smell of the plastic glass helped me to concentrate. Umm, I doubt. It’s been three months I’ve already closed the gate behind me.

The sky was still overcast, though it was April. The soft weather cools the coffee. I put the collar up of my flannel shirt. A flimsy flannel can bring you warmth, I muse. My mind recaps one childhood experience nearly twenty-two years ago when my father had held me in his lap, and though I had a pullover on, father’s flannel shirt, touching my pullover had transferred his body warmth through his sweater straight onto my body. Through a natural language of hearts, I didn’t find it hard to understand then the gentle flow of love. But now, would even the thickest flannel offer me warmth?

Walking to the newspaper vendor, I tossed three coins and opened the classified advertisement page. Offers of home tutors and sale of dogs. Scanning the page further, there was one column whose heading caught my eyes, P G Accommodation. A list of requirement followed. Accommodations for college students. Even for working people. Running my eyes down, I was on the lookout for economical rates. A few in the neighbouring suburbs of an hour or so driving distance.

Yes, Wincester. I browsed through its details. I seemed to be a traveller reading through the list of passengers’ names in the bulletin board of RAC – reservation against cancellation – just before the train is to pull out of the platform. Only accommodation, fifteen hundred per month.  Which means fifty per day.

I had always wanted to be a traveller. So let me be one of this city of which I hardly know much except for the fact that I had come several times as a child to spend my school vacations. That was, I suppose, thrice. And after that for a year of college which I discontinued as I thought it was a calling to join the noviciate.

The bus shelter was quite empty except for several passengers, a college girl with fancy boots holding some books close to her chest and a middle aged man with a briefcase. Soon a bus arrived dressed in green and steel. It slowed down to a stop, several passengers deboarded giving me space to board.

Fortunately, the atmosphere within was warm and cosy. Some empty seats beckoning passengers, I edged myself closer. The breath of the passengers warmed the space. You felt you are in your mother’s womb. Mother. The thought spread slow emotion inside, like liquid sedative injected. After about thirty minutes or so in that sedation, I boarded down at the Wincester bus stop.

Stalls of hosiery goods. Male undergarments swung in the breeze in tune with female ones, all perched on nylon strings clipped in neat and straight lines. T-shirts in reds and blues and vests in white dangled from clips from various rows of strings. As far as my eyes went only such stalls with the same dangling goods appeared.

“What size sir?”

I turned my head and found myself looking into a man’s face. He was middle-aged with a hospitable tone, his eyes at my waist.

“No, I don’t need any, thank you.” My voice had enough softness. “But can you tell where this is located?” And I showed him the address circled in the newspaper.

“Oh that,” and he pointed to the direction in a by-lane. “Next to the Old Warehouse Road.”

I smiled and nodding a thank you, moved on.

There it was, the first house at the corner. A three-storeyed house. Its exterior walls suffering a whitewash. The first and last whitewash must have been when it was constructed many decades ago. The cracks were as visible as zig-zag lines of electric volts suddenly appearing in the sky. From one of these cracks the stalk of a banyan tree pushed itself out into the world with its few leaves and had come out victorious. Each window precariously clung to a single hinge, their backs stooped forward like an old man very much in need of a walking stick as support.

I entered through the open door and into the semi-dark passage. Seated at a table, pouring over a newspaper was a salt-and-pepper haired man. He looked up from his reading. I asked him about the advertisement. Yes, the other nodded. The man got up and took his customer to the right where several doors stood. I looked inside the first one. Four beds filled the room. Likewise I was shown the rest of the rooms.

The last room was smaller but with six cots.

“How much is this one? Per bed, I mean.”

“Thirty per night.”

“I’ll take this.”

Once I handed over the one month advance payment, I stepped into my room. The two windows stood at two extremes – right and left – like a pair of eyes on the face of the room. The beds, if one may call them so, were simply wooden planks standing on four legs. I took my face forward and inspected the cot on the right at the window. It was made of four planks of wood, roughly nailed to the frame. The four corners of the frame were nailed to the bed’s legs. Save that nothing else proved it to be a bed. They were of a moderate size but when you would lie down, your feet would stick out. But, can beggars be choosers! I turned my eyes to the other beds. All were similar in their looks and characteristics.       

I sat on the edge of this cot. My cot. All of a sudden a feeling of something strange gripped my stomach. And instantly loneliness spread a blanket over. This was a new world, and I was unknown to this city, its customs.

Like it?

I turned my head. The voice in my ear. “Why do you show me this?

This is how your great grandfather started his journey. In this humble way till he, till he turned into a tyrant.

*

I turned to the main road. All the stores in Avenue Street had their lights switched off. The pavement was more spacious without the makeshift stalls which sold imported cigarettes and gas lighters, sugar free gum, Swiss Army Knives, and soap from China and condoms from Thailand with nude women on their shiny covers, their hair ginger coloured, their breasts bigger than their heads.

It was well past two at night when I reached the Park Road. I crossed Studio Zam Zam across Shiraz restaurant, on the ground floor and took the dark wooden stairs snaking up to the second floor. I rapped with the iron knocker on the door. I was about to give the second knock when the door opened and a woman stood framing the door. I stepped inside. The size of the room was similar to mine, perhaps sixteen by twelve feet. On the left was an attached washroom whose door stood slightly ajar. On the couch were sitting the lemon-coloured frocked girl and the molested lady who was thrown out of the car. The Door Lady – the lady who opened the door – sat on the other single couch. None seemed to observe my presence in the room, they continued with their discussion, talking in a voiceless voice. I tried to penetrate into their thoughts but neither could I hear nor comprehend their silent conversation. I smiled at the females.

“Hello,” I said. “I’m Jashwant Singh.” I turned to the little girl. “You are Damasque, aren’t you?” But she didn’t hear me, her eyes were busy shifting from one lady to the other. The women too didn’t feel my presence.

The bulb above was not milky, but transparent glass with the filament hurting my eyes to such an extent that I had to squint above the glare. I turned my face from the first lady to the second one, but they too continued moving their hands, their body language proving their points of the deep discussion they were drowned in. On the window sill stood a small dog made of ceramic, glossy chocolate brown with a white patch, its ear chipped off. Perhaps it had fallen off the narrow shelf during a strong wind when the window was open. I nodded at it, and it looked into my eyes and its mouth opened into a smile. And no sooner did that happen than a slight rush of wind rose in my ear, and I entered into the conversation of the females.

“…and yes, this is the way.” The Door Lady was said. “You don’t say a word but turn your back to them and begin to undress. They might watch your clothes fall onto the floor. They might be distracted by the prints of the red and yellow flowers of the bed sheet. And that might remind them of hibiscus and marigold flowers outside the Temple of the Voices…”

“Yes,” the molested lady interrupted. “One of them might remark, ‘One of these days I think I am going to surprise you by buying a dress of Chinese silk, more soft and subtle, perhaps hibiscus red or sky blue in colour.’ But don’t get distracted with their words. They want you to turn so that they can enjoy a good look at you…”

“…You are right. Next you unbutton your top, slip it over your head. It will rumple your hair, but never mind, that will make you appear sexier. The bra will be the next one to go, and their eyes will fall where the white strips have gouged themselves on your dusky back. This will titillate them, before you let your undergarment slide to the floor. All this protocol you have to maintain, for all these had been followed by the ancestors. You see, every profession calls for some self dignity at least.”

And then, as if they felt the presence of someone in the room, in the midst of the hurting glare from the lone bulb, they turned their faces at