Hillstation (6 page)

‘I have the most terrible nausea,' he winced, pressing his knees together.

‘You said it was a headache,' shrilled his good lady. ‘So which is it? Or perhaps it is neither. Perhaps it is some other bit of your body that makes you suddenly need to visit the clinic.'

‘Please,' I said. ‘It is my job to ascertain the whereabouts of his discomfort.'

‘I'll tell you the whereabouts,' she hooted. ‘It's in his mind. That's where.'

‘Are you saying these symptoms are psychosomatic?' I said, hoping to baffle her with arcane scientific terminology.

‘I'm saying he's a liar,' she shouted, jabbing him in the stomach.

‘That is not quite the same,' I said as he bent forward groaning. ‘What you are possibly referring to is “Munchausen Syndrome”, a condition to which people of the Germanic continent are particularly susceptible.'

‘And this… this syndrome is what?' she said, flailing at him as he tried to put an arm around her. ‘Leering at that which should not be leered at? Lying to your family and skiving off work to satisfy one's carnal curiosities?'

‘Well, no. It's mainly about staying indoors and eating too much in order to draw undue attention to oneself,' I said, though to be honest that particular page in the medical dictionary had been one of several abridged by mice.

‘He is a married man. I didn't know he had carnal curiosities.' She wiped her nose on a fold of her shawl. ‘Perhaps there is something you can give him for that?'

‘There is usually something for everything,' I said cautiously. ‘And what we don't have, I can order.'

‘Well, whatever it is you give him,' she said, waving at the lengthening queue, ‘you'll need plenty of it.'

When I managed to push my way through to the waiting room, the first thing I noticed was a widely contagious neurological disorder causing people to stare fixedly, their jaws locked open as they stretched their necks and waved from side to side. In a fleeting moment of clinical excitement, I wondered if we hadn't discovered a new disease. This was something I had often dreamed of as a just reward for Dev's medical explorations. To stand at last on a gilded podium and receive the Noble Prize was something, I knew, that he coveted above all accolades. He had mentioned it one evening after I'd expressed concern that too much research might be slurring his speech and making him clumsy.

‘No prize without sacrifice,' he had laughed maniacally. ‘If you want those yacht parties and Swedish women, then you've got to put the hours in. You've got to take those hours, every last one of them in your grubby, greasy hands and shove them right in as far as they'll go.'

On another occasion he told me about some of the prize-winners he most admired such as the eminent Dr Watson who had developed a crick in his neck from solving mysteries. ‘Observation,' he had tried to explain, though we both knew I struggled a bit with the more rarified echelons of abstract science, ‘is the you know of the something or other, which is that, the thing, which it is, you see.'

It struck me that our new discovery might forever be known as ‘Dev Sharma Syndrome', or even ‘Pushkara Disease'. Doctors would nod sagely at the stiff necks and rigid eyeballs in front of them and say, ‘My good fellow, I fear that what you have got is a bad case of the Pushkaras.' Although I could see objections to this. While it was established practice to name ailments after the clinicians who discovered them, I wondered sometimes if it didn't pale after a while to find your name eternally cross-indexed with vomiting. How did the good Doctors Crohn, Elephantitis and Stool feel as yet another hotel receptionist tried not to smirk? Among blessings, scientific renown can be especially mixed.

It was only when I reached the central vortex around which the epidemic swirled that I too was struck by its contagion, my eyes locked open, my jaw hung slack and my limbs refusing to move.

She was sitting in the middle of the room, a simple blue dress hanging lightly over her legs. Her shoes were black, flat and rather plain. A delicate chime of silver bangles slid back as she raised a hand to brush the hair from her eyes. Standing next to her was the man in the crumpled suit whose name, I remembered, was Mike.

‘How much longer, do you reckon?' she said.

He shrugged.

‘Bloody goldfish bowl,' she said, after a moment.

‘Where?' said Mike.

‘Not where. Us.'

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Yeah.'

The babble of voices hushed abruptly as I stepped forward. Eyes, in spite of their rigidity, swivelled to watch me. Breaths were held, limbs frozen. Even the flies seemed to hover silently in the sultry air. If it wasn't for clinical decorum I would have leapt over to her, laughing and crying, for here she was, my destiny, my beloved, the consummation of my heart's desire, the apogee of all my longings, waiting with a quiet grace and solemn humility I had never seen before in any human being, ever. In this moment hung the fecundity of generations. And I promised never again to doubt the powers of Pol to win celestial favours.

‘What?' she said, noticing me.

‘Perhaps you would like to come with me,' I said, indicating my office.

‘Are you the Doctor?' said Mike.

‘Not at all. I am merely the Clinic Skivvy. My brother, who has been to England, is the Doctor. But I can provide you with a preliminary consultation until he is ready to see you,' I thought. What I actually said was, ‘Yes of course.'

‘I'll see you at the hotel,' said the man.

‘You're not waiting?' she said.

He looked around. ‘I dunno, there's got to be a drink somewhere in this bloody town.'

‘Mountain resort,' she said dryly.

‘Yeah,' he said, ‘whatever.'

I closed the door and gestured to the chair in front of my desk.

‘It is my opinion,' I said, getting one or two matters out of the way, ‘that we should not have sex before marriage.'

‘Word gets around then,' she said, sitting down.

I opened my diagnosis pad and sharpened a pencil.

‘Anyway,' she said, looking at her hands, ‘it's not sex, it's acting.'

Dev had often told me that in love nothing makes sense, even things so simple, ordinarily, that they don't have to. Love, he had said, is a distress you never want to end. And though I had found that slightly paradoxical at the time, I was beginning to understand what he meant.

‘Anyway,' she added, looking up, ‘you've got your opinions and I've got mine. Right now I just need something for the runs.'

‘And how long have you had these “Runs”?' I asked, making a note.

‘About a week now,' she said. ‘Well, it's got worse the last couple of days.'

‘And where does it hurt?' I asked.

‘It doesn't hurt. It's the runs.'

‘Right,' I said, reaching for the medical dictionary with a calm professionalism that never failed to put my patients at their ease. A deft flick of my fingers opened it to the section marked ‘R'. I nodded knowingly and began to wend my way through Rabies, Rickets and Rhinitis.

‘What are you doing?' she said.

‘Rubber Allergy,' I said. ‘We're almost there. Oh.'

‘What?'

‘We've got to “S” without any mention of “The Runs”, or even “Runs, The”. Still,' I smiled at her, ‘let us spare a thought for the good Doctor Rubinstein-Taybi and pray that the disorder to which he lends his name is not too unsightly.'

‘What are you talking about?' she said.

Reading the dictionary had long been my favourite part of the consultation, the patients visibly relaxing as I intoned, ‘Club Foot, Coccidioidomycosis, Coenuriasis' and finally, ‘aha, it seems to me that what you have described is the Common Cold.' If, on this occasion, it only seemed to agitate her, I reminded myself that a little bewilderment in the presence of one's beloved is perfectly natural.

‘Perhaps it's a new disease,' I smiled. ‘If you like we could name it after you.'

‘It's not new,' she said. ‘I've had it before. Everyone's had it. Mike was laid up for three days in Bombay with it.'

‘Right,' I said, my pencil poised. ‘And would you say that your neck is unusually stiff at the moment?'

She stared at me. I made a note of the fact that it might be. ‘When in doubt,' Dev had said to me once, ‘make a note and gaze into space as if you're thinking of something far away.'

‘You know,' she said insistently. ‘The Squits.'

I was there in a flash. ‘You have a squint?' I said.

‘Do I look as if I've got a squint?' she said.

‘You have been attacked by a squid?' I said, in a moment of clinical inspiration.

She shook her head.

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘but that is the nearest I can find to what you describe, and to be frank there is nothing in here about squids, that was just a guess. But I suggest that you try focusing your eyes on something in front of you until both of them are pointing in the same direction. Did your parents have a squint?'

‘My Dad wore glasses,' she said.

‘Then it's more than likely to do with the particularities of your Deoxyribonucleic Acid,' I said. Another thing Dev had impressed upon me was the use of long words that meant nothing to the patient but nevertheless made their condition sound important. ‘It is nothing to worry about,' I said. ‘We all have some Deoxyribonucleic Acid in us. Though too much of it can sometimes lead to an upset stomach.'

‘That's it,' she said. ‘It's an upset stomach.'

I leaned back in my chair and smiled. ‘You see,' I said. ‘Meticulous analysis leads invariably to the correct diagnosis.'

‘So what can you give me?' she said.

‘How bad is it?' I asked.

‘Well, I can't keep anything down, diarrhoea, the usual. Probably ate something, or drank something. I don't know. I think Cindy's getting it, she was looking a bit off this morning.'

‘Cindy?'

‘Oh, sorry, one of the other dancers.'

‘Pol's wife?' I said.

‘No. She's not married.'

‘Not yet,' I chuckled, ‘but let's not get ahead of ourselves. What I suggest you do is eat lots of Chapatis which are excellent for binding.'

‘You mean, like roughage?' she said.

‘That's exactly the word,' I said, feeling that we had, by now, developed something of a rapport.

‘Okay,' she said, ‘but don't you have tablets or anything like that?'

‘Tablets?' I smiled, waving my arm at the pill store. ‘We have many tablets for all sorts of things. But we can't just give them out willy nilly for no reason.'

‘My stomach?'

‘Um, yes,' I said. ‘That might qualify as a reason.'

I got up and walked to the shelves. Pharmacy is largely a science but also, to some extent, an art. Sometimes I arranged the medicines alphabetically and sometimes according to the anatomical regions with which they were concerned. Thus headache remedies were kept with dandruff ointments, verruca pads with corn plasters and so on. I had, quite recently, sorted them according to colour, which was visually harmonious if clinically a bit confusing. But if it is both a science and an art, then it is also, in some unquantifiable way, a matter of luck. There, among the white boxes with green lettering, was a small carton the text of which promised to ‘Stop Diarrhoea Fast!'.

‘It seems,' I said, ‘that we have just the thing.'

I popped the package into a little bag and handed it to her.

‘So, what's the dosage?' she said.

‘In the box you will find a neatly folded piece of paper with extremely tiny writing. This will tell you what you need to know in as many languages as you need to know it in.'

‘Thank you,' she said. ‘Is that it?'

‘For the moment,' I said. ‘I'm sure we'll have a lot more than roughage and diarrhoea to talk about over the coming years.'

‘I remember from school,' she said, standing up.

‘Remember what?' I said.

‘Roughage and all that. We had to draw a picture of a meal and write about vitamins.'

‘Ah, yes,' I said, ‘vitamins are very important.'

‘Yeah, that's what they said.'

I pushed my chair back and stood up. She looked at me for a moment then rustled the bag.

‘Well,' she said, ‘thanks.'

‘Making people better,' I said.

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘The clinic motto,' I explained. ‘Or it would have been if the elders hadn't decided that it overstated our importance.' I shrugged, beginning to get the feeling that we were both, as they say, skirting around the subject.

‘Right.' She rustled the bag again and moved to go.

‘Do you know,' I said, ‘that you have not told me your name?'

‘Oh, yes' she said. ‘Of course. Sorry. It's Martina. Martina Marvellous.'

‘That is a marvellous name,' I quipped but the words had already sunk into the core of my soul, their warm vowels and lilting alliteration like a joyous gasp, a sunny morning waking up together.

‘It used to be Norma Stopley,' she said, moving towards the door. ‘But hey.'

‘I think we ought to acknowledge,' I said, ‘that because of your father's affliction there is a high probability that our children may have to wear glasses.'

She looked at me with an expression I couldn't fathom and was gone.

3

My little office had never
felt so empty, nor so still. Even the hands of time had stopped, though the ‘Twelve Things You Need To Know About Flatulence' wall clock had a tendency to do that anyway. I'd once asked a holy man about the feeling you get when a ceremonial elephant passes you on the High Street. ‘It is not the parade,' he had answered, ‘but the silence it leaves behind.' Which I didn't appreciate at the time, poking my tongue out thinking him too saintly either to throw his shoe or report me to my Father, in both of which I had been wrong. Lazy particles of light tumbled across the window. A cackle of crows rose and fell over the rubbish outside. A crunch of scooters gave way to the sound of raised voices. And yet nothing changed. As if all the movements of the world couldn't ruffle the silence beneath.

I wondered if my inaugural meeting with Martina had gone as well as it might have. Perhaps I'd been too anxious to show off my clinical expertise, like those young men strutting the market place, shirts unbuttoned to the first chest hairs. I thought of all the little spaces in which I should have flung myself across the desk to smother her in kisses. I recalled her look of quizzical bewilderment that seemed to say, ‘My love, why are we talking about rectal inflammation when you know what brings me here?' But then again, what did I know of these things? My only romantic encounter thus far had been with an ephemeral woman who turned into a goat when I attempted to fondle her breasts. It wasn't a happy experience and I had woken up considerably embarrassed.

The waiting room was vacant again, everyone having melted to wherever people melt when the object of their fascination has elbowed its way out the door with a few choice words not listed in the Pushkara Lexicon of English Usage. A little thrill coursed through me, quite suddenly, as I wondered how long before I too would melt into the hot bliss of a thousand whispered endearments. Not long, I thought. But then, how long is not long? Today? Tomorrow? What if not long, in Pol's Grand Scheme of Things, is forever to a little fellow wanting only to be with his beloved? In so far as it was in my power to determine how long not long might be in this instance, I decided that I had to move fast.

As usual, however, Pol was impossible to find. His mother pointed to a pillow on the floor.

‘That!' she screamed.

‘I am sorry to trouble you, Mrs Bister,' I said, ‘but I've looked everywhere and nobody seems to know where he is.'

‘Oh, he's too clever for that,' she snickered, ‘he'll be far away by now, gloating in the luxury of his crimes. That!' she said again pointing at the pillow.

‘A pillow?' I said, getting drawn into one of her conversations, something I always vowed never to do again.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘That's exactly what it is. You're quite observant for someone a little bit dim if you don't mind me saying. To be precise, the pillow he tried to smother me with. My jewels!' She clutched her hair. ‘They were all I had to remind me of my great grandfather, the Maharaja, whose lands and titles I would have inherited had it not been for the wickedness of my evil step-brother, may he rot in hell with his fast cars and swimming pools, the scheming bastard.'

‘When did this happen?' I asked.

‘When I was but a child,' she whispered. ‘Innocent as the new-born day.'

‘I mean Pol trying to smother you, not the evil step-brother business.'

‘I'm not sure.' She fingered her throat. ‘I think I may have passed out. Was it a moment ago? I can still feel his murderous hands, and those wicked eyes, devoid of remorse or compassion…' She leaned forward, lank hair flopping across her face. ‘He is not my son. This is the truth. Listen to me…'

Sensing a tale epic even by Mrs Bister's standards, I began to edge towards the door.

‘You see, I found him,' she glanced nervously towards the window. ‘On the night of my lover's untimely demise at the hands of blood-hungry robbers.'

‘That's very interesting,' I said, ‘but if he turns up, could you tell him I've been looking for him?'

‘A bundle of rags, mewling and wriggling by the side of the road. For a moment I thought it was a bundle of rags mewling and wriggling, but then I thought, rags on their own don't.'

‘I'm sorry, Mrs Bister,' I said, easing myself into the hall, ‘perhaps another time.'

‘It was dark. Obviously. I know it gets dark at night, I'm not an idiot, but this was… a darkness beyond darkness.'

‘It was nice to see you,' I said, carefully opening the front door.

‘And from somewhere distantly a dog howled.'

I heard nothing more except the sound of a tea cup striking the door through which I had just left.

Mr Chatterjee was hurrying down the street with a box of lever-arch files.

‘Mr Chatterjee,' I called in a genial but urgent way.

‘Young Mr Sharma,' he said, stopping. ‘You have correctly identified me on this beautiful morning. And with the early mist cleared by a soothing breeze, are the mountains not revealed in all their majesty? I have often wondered why the mornings are so misty, especially in the bathroom after a shower, unless one wakes up with a fuzzy face!'

I laughed politely.

‘Of course,' he continued, ‘it might get cloudy later. Or not. Who's to know? That is the thing about the weather. In the end, it will be exactly as it is and there's really nothing we can do about it, whether we want to or not. No pun intended.'

I chuckled again. ‘Do you happen to know where Pol is?' I asked.

‘Yes, that is a worry,' said Mr Chatterjee, shaking his head. ‘I mean, he's a fine young man, don't misunderstand me, but he lacks a certain… I'm not sure what the word is…'

‘Being easy to find?' I suggested.

‘Indeed,' said Mr Chatterjee. ‘Although that's a phrase, I'm afraid. The word itself like its subject proves elusive. You know how it is,' he continued, into his stride now, ‘that exact sense you can't quite put your finger on, or at least not its verbal locution, so you go poking about under dusty piles of old clauses…'

I let him carry on as I turned to the mango-seller, Mr Premar, who was passing by with his empty cart.

‘Excuse me,' I said, ‘have you…?'

‘If you're hoping to buy some mangos,' he interjected, ‘you're out of luck.'

‘Then why do you push that cart?' asked Mr Chatterjee.

‘Why do you carry that box?' said Mr Premar, mysteriously, moving on.

‘You see, a proper businessman is predictable,' said Mr Chatterjee. ‘Take Mr Bister. One always knows where to find him. Sometimes, having found him, one wishes one hadn't but that is beside the point. I'm not saying he's perfect, of course. Who is? And though some people like to think unkindly of him, I have to say that he has always been fair to me. Firm but fair. And if I fall short in my duties from time to time, is it unfair of him to call me a fat-headed hoity toity?'

‘I suppose not,' I said, wearily.

‘And to administer a curt flick across the top of the aforesaid?'

‘He does that?' I said.

‘Sometimes with the application of his foot to my rear quarters as I am hurrying out to put a damp cloth over the smarting consequences of the heretofore.'

I stared at him.

‘Hope is with the son,' sighed Mr Chatterjee. ‘At least I hope so. For can one truly prosper in matters of commerce without kicking people in the bottom? I don't know. Perhaps he is too soft. For instance when I saw him at the Hotel Nirvana a few minutes ago, having gone to ask if I should sort the stock-inventories by traditional means or according to my new index system in spite of the chaos it caused last time, not to mention a sore head and rear end, he said, “Mr Chatterjee, whatever makes you happy”. “Do you mean that, young sir?” I replied. “Please,” he laughed, “You may call me Pol. It is too ridiculous for someone of an elevated birth to act deferentially towards one who has not only failed thus far to achieve a respectable embodiment but after last night is most unlikely to.”'

‘The Hotel Nirvana?' I said.

‘Indeed. But what a young man of aspirational intent could possibly find there to occupy his attentions…'

The rest of which was lost to me as I hurried down the hill.

The Hotel Nirvana was a place which good people were said to avoid. According to Father, its many windows were darker than even the morning sun could pierce. Elders would sometimes mutter about a drinking den though nobody could ever quite say who organised it or how. It was merely observed that some of the men, disappearing from time to time to ‘discuss matters', would come back disoriented. One night a small but angry delegation of wives had descended on the hotel to ‘catch them at it'. After an hour or so of running up and down the baffling labyrinth of staircases, many of which led to precipitous drops or simply nowhere, they eventually found the men sitting around with cups of tea discussing the difference between moral certainty and phenomenal chance. Some of the wives swore they'd searched that very room when they'd first arrived but the men just shrugged, pointed to their tea and carried on with the discussion. It was rumoured that one of the staircases led to a roof but nobody bar its initiates ever knew which.

Today, however, the two roads outside its main entrance were packed with villagers, mostly tradespeople. Even Mr Premar had arrived shouting, ‘Mangos, mangos, tasty fresh mangos!' in spite of his empty cart.

‘It's an outrage,' snorted Mrs Ghosh clutching a chicken under her arm. ‘Bister's got the foreigners locked up with him so he can sell them his own produce.'

‘But Mr Bister doesn't sell chickens,' I said.

‘No, but he will,' she retorted, chasing the chicken as it broke free and flapped up the road.

I managed to squeeze between Mr Jalpur who was waving one of his saucepans on the end of a stick and Mrs Knapp who was shaking an aubergine.

‘I'll bet even now he's trying to buy moth-eaten, over-ripe aubergines from down the hill,' said Mrs Knapp thrusting one of hers under my nose. ‘The Queen of vegetables,' she said. ‘Peerless among foods for its fragrance and texture.'

‘Personally,' I said, ‘I have always found them somewhat inedible.'

‘And if they want a saucepan?' said Mr Jalpur. ‘You know he's gone into kitchenware now? “Kitchenware”!' he spat. ‘Hammered-out bits of tin that don't last five meals. Look at this.' He lowered the stick. ‘What do you see?'

‘A saucepan?' I offered.

‘No, no, you are not looking.'

‘A most excellent saucepan?'

‘Your face, you idiot! You can see your face in it. And after twenty meals you can still see your face. After twenty hundred meals, properly cared for, notwithstanding the terms of the warranty, please refer to the notice behind me, you will still see your face!'

‘But why should our visitors wish to buy a saucepan?' I said.

He stared at it for a moment seeing his face, presumably, but no answer.

I pushed past the two chocolatiers who were ramming their wagons into each other while denouncing the quality of each other's nut bars. Closer to the steps, people were pushing forward while those at the top tumbled back, saris and chapatis flying over their heads. In front of the door stood the Buddhist Cook, his bald pate catching the sunlight, bare feet planted lightly, ready for the next assault.

‘Salutations, holy one,' I said with a bow. ‘I am looking for Pol Bister who is, I believe, presently therein.'

His hooded eyes gazed somewhere above my shoulder.

‘It's no use,' said Mrs Peerival who had dropped her tomatoes making everyone slip about. ‘He's under instruction not to let anyone in.'

‘But I am a friend of Pol,' I said opening my hands in the universal gesture of peace and harmony.

He tilted forward on his toes.

‘Besides which,' added Mrs Peerival, ‘you can't argue with followers of Zen since they don't accept that you exist.'

I crept round the back, clambering over the rubble to the rear windows, all of which seemed to be firmly shut.

‘Pol!' I shouted. ‘It's me, Rabindra!'

‘Rabindra? Is that you?' said Pol appearing at one of the windows and pushing it open.

‘Well, who else,' I said, dodging a shard of glass, ‘would be shouting, “Pol, Pol, it's me, Rabindra”?'

He leaned out and offered his hand. After a little puffing from both of us, I finally hauled myself into the room.

‘How many times have I dreamed of a lover?' said Pol, pacing anxiously about as I got my breath back. ‘And how many times have I beaten myself up for it afterwards?'

I thought about mentioning the goat incident but decided not to.

‘It was not my choice,' he continued. ‘My father sent me to assist with preparations for the dance recital. Naturally I declined and naturally he insisted. Naturally I declined again and naturally he became irate.' Pol stopped for a moment, then stared at me helplessly. ‘The fact is,' he said, ‘my soul is on the precipice. The very perfection for which I have striven is in my hands, these hands. But they are failing. They have grown weak, Rabindra, with desire. All the books I've read, the verses chanted, the
pujas
,
japas
and austerities practised, the long hours spent in rapt contemplation of matters spiritually uplifting are wasted. Wasted. Oh, Rabindra! Do you recall the time my father ordered too many fig delicacies and told me to eat as many of them as I could before they went off?'

‘Yes, I remember,' I said.

We had gorged ourselves for days until Pol began to fear they'd run out before we had gorged ourselves enough. He had stopped abruptly as we sat in his father's sweet shop and said, ‘Rabindra, I am enjoying these so much that I have begun to grieve at the fact that one day there shall be no more.'