The Cripple and His Talismans (21 page)

“The Emperor is going to the desert. If God does not spit on our great Emperor, he might die of thirst.”

There are claps and pats on the back, soft
wahs
, loud
wahs
, fake
wahs
and one or two genuine ones.

“The Emperor will miss Juka,” says the wise man.

He is just an old fool who will soon go blind. It does not matter what he thinks. But I wait for the Emperor’s reply.

“He will,” says the Emperor.

“But who will the Emperor miss most?” asks the old fool again.

Perhaps he is not such a fool. He is trying to instigate something.

“Ah,” is the reply. “Do I love Juka’s food and wit, or will my love of song prevail?”

So song is my enemy.

“Will Horasi not sing for us?”

Horasi. It is a man’s name. It is familiar. I do not like it. It starts with an H and ends with an I. H for Hate; I for an eye.

A song lifts toward the murals of the palace ceiling and the courtiers part ways and sit on the floor. A lone form in a blue sari, with long hair and orange bangles on thin wrists, is the object of all eyes. If the parrots in the tree are blue, his sari is bluer. If the parrots in the tree are red, so is my anger. But his song continues to rise, toward the picture of Akbar the Great killing elephants. Horasi’s voice sits on the ceiling and looks down upon us. It is on Akbar’s horse now, and travels from one mural to the next. Akbar towering over men like a tall god, Akbar blessing the poor with the palm of his hand, Akbar bringing the elephant he killed back to life. It is the most beautiful sound I have heard and, like all beautiful things, it must be destroyed.

When Horasi ends, Akbar gets up from his throne and walks toward him. Toward this person of no gender, this third person, who invented himself by default, who came in third even though only two seats were created.

“Yes, I shall miss Horasi the most,” says the Emperor.

“Then why not take him with you?” I ask. It is not my place to speak, but I will take a chance.

“And risk losing him? Do you wish to be flogged?”

Horasi, seizing this moment, uses it like light from the sky. “But I will be ready to sing even if it means losing my life,” he says.

“There will be no need. But there is a need to punish Juka.”

“But my Emperor,” I say. “I did not mean take him physically. There is a way for his voice to reach you.”

“How is that?”

“Let Horasi sit on the highest dome of the palace. Let his voice travel over pink rivers, blue trees and orange groves if it has to. It will reach you in the desert and soothe you.”

“Will Horasi do this for his king?”

“It is already done,” says Horasi.

He looks at me and I look at the murals. There is no doubt that the stone in my heart is meant for him.

“For this great service to his king,” says the Emperor, “I appoint Horasi in charge of my kingdom until my return.”

“But a eunuch in charge?” asks the wise man. He could not have worded it better.

“Anyone who disobeys Horasi will answer to me. After they are dead.”

“I must take my place on the dome this instant,” says Horasi. “If I start singing now, my voice will reach the desert by the time of your arrival. Your horses are swift and strong, and I must keep up with them.”

Horasi walks out of the palace, out into the rose garden of seven scents, past the fountain of golden water, into the tower that will take him to the highest dome.

And so the days pass like marbles on a steep slope, one after another, fast and changing colours. Horasi the eunuch sits on the dome and sends his song to the desert. He eats there, sleeps there and cries there; such is his devotion. From all across the kingdom his blue sari can be seen fluttering in the breeze atop a white dome like a martyr’s flag. He is fast becoming a hero and when the Emperor returns, my food will taste of salty stone when compared to the sweetness of Horasi’s desert voice.

Horasi issues orders. We must treat eunuchs as equal to men; we must make little boys who are like girls
into
girls; we must weave saris of such length that they touch the palace grounds from the dome when he wears them. Such excess leads to a land’s worst enemy; such indulgence leads to famine.

When the drought finally hits, they all come to me, for I am the greatest cook. I will find ways of bringing food to life even if drought has killed it. And they all go to Horasi because he issues the orders. Against Emperor Akbar’s wishes, in light of the terrible plight of the kingdom, it is okay to kill birds for food. All birds can be killed, except nightingales — they are birds of song. That is the decree of the eunuch.

It is sad the way men plot their own defeat. But then again, Horasi is not a man. If we are not meant to die a natural death, nature will provide a way to bring one’s downfall. The famine is nature’s gift to me. And Horasi’s gift — that of song — will soon leave him. Then even the fan bearer will be of more use to the king.

Past the garden of seven scents, behind the fountain of golden water, there is a tree. It is an ordinary tree, probably the most average one in the kingdom. It would have been cut and made into a wooden chest if it were not for the nightingale that spends hours in it. It sings every day, sends sounds of love and futile yearning far into the land.

I watch it sing now as I stand behind this ordinary tree. I see Horasi on the dome, his arms reaching far into the sky, invoking rain; his head is arched backward facing the clouds, his mouth is open. But I do not hear his voice, for it is somewhere near the orange grove right now and will soon cross the pink rivers. It will then reach the desert and the Emperor’s ears. Horasi must fail.

I scale the tree easily. The nightingale does not know fear, for it has never been hunted. It thinks I am its friend. I slowly place my arm on the branch and move to its end.

One more day passes and the marbles are rolling faster. But their colours are weak. They have no power to change and do so slowly, bleeding into one another. The famine is strong and soon we could all be dead. But I will die a happy, vengeful man.

I carry two small morsels on a tray. They are the bird’s heart and throat.

I stand at the foot of the dome and look up at the flying Horasi. He is hundreds of feet high and yet his sari rolls on the palace earth comfortably. I pull it hard and wave out to him when he looks down. The tray in my hand makes the sunlight climb the palace’s outer walls.

I shout a little, but not a lot. When words are important, they reach the ears of those for whom they are meant, even if they are rivers away.

“I’m sorry for what I did, my king,” I say.

My words travel upward like tiny soldiers scaling palace walls.

“I am not your king,” he says.

“In the absence of the Emperor, you are. I offer you a token of peace.”

Before he can reply, I wrap the tray with the nightingale’s throat and heart in his long sari. I tug at the sari to signal he must pull it up.

“It is a parrot’s heart and throat,” I lie. “It will bring speed to your voice.”

“Then I must eat this for Emperor Akbar,” says Horasi.

When there is a famine, hunger overtakes common sense. When the stomach growls, so does the heart. It laps up wood and poison with the same delicious tongue.

I wave to him, walk into the garden of seven scents and inhale. On any other day, there would be the smell of warm sun, of sloping wind just fallen from the mountain, of strong horse and gentle cow. But I detect only one scent today: of blood leaving, of a voice becoming softer and softer.

If the bird of song is eaten, all men shall hunger for music forever.

The garden glows like some cheap stone. It rises and looms above my head, waiting to descend upon me. It comes lower and lower. Something is terribly wrong. A hand touches mine and pulls the hookah away from my lips. There is water everywhere, but it is receding.

I feel shame and look at the face before me. My enemy smiles at me. We are back in the teahouse at Café Gulab.

“Sixteenth-century coal is the best,” says Horasi.

“Why did you call me Emperor Akbar?” I ask.

“Should I have called you my greatest enemy instead?”

“I took the gift of song from you,” I say. “Forgive me.”

“It is why we eunuchs have bad voices even today,” he says. “Are you going to ask us all for forgiveness?”

“That will take lots of time.”

“Yes,” he says. “And you hardly have any time left.”

“For what?”

“To earn your arm back.”

“You know about the arm?”

“It was used wrongly,” he says. “But you will soon begin to regain its wisdom.”

“Why are you helping me? I poisoned your throat with a sweet nightingale’s meat and killed your voice.”

“I’m helping you because I need to atone as well.”

“What did you do?”

“I cut off your arm in return. Or did you not get that far?”

“What must I do now?”

“Correct your past,” he says. “Before it’s too late.”

The past is a tricky thing. You spend the present trying to forget it. So perhaps there is no such thing as the past because it is always present.

Viren Hieronymous D’Silva. With a name like that, it was easy for me to find his address. The phones in this city rarely work, but the phone books always do. Viren Hieronymous D’Silva lives in a building by the sea at Napean Sea Road. I am taking a taxi from Chor Bazaar to his house. I wonder if Viren Hieronymous D’Silva is married. No, who would marry the poor creature? Another poor creature, perhaps? It makes me sad. Two poor creatures living by the sea, staring at the water each morning, not knowing how unfortunate they are.

I must stop this. I am here to repent.

I do not know if he will recognize me. It has been years. The last time I saw him he was looking into my eyes as the sugarcane machine ate up his fingers. Perhaps he will remember my eyes. But I will not be able to look into his.

I knew even back then that what I had done was wrong. As Miss Moses used to tell me so often: There is such a thing as a line and you, my friend, have crossed it. Miss Bardet, on the other hand, had no wisdom to give. Whenever I did or said something indecent/ immoral, she would have the same reaction — her breast would heave up and down and she would look around the room to seek confirmation from the walls, the fans, the desks, the chairs. Did the boy really say that?

God bless both those old birds.

I am very close to Viren’s house. No matter where I go in this city, it is always struggling. The church to my left has a statue of Jesus outside. Below it sleeps a tiny boy, curled into a ball, remembering the days when he was warm in his mother’s womb. Behind the church is an old Parsi mansion, built during the British rule, which will fetch truckloads of money when sold. But the man who lives in it lives alone, separated from his family, drinks his tea with a shaking hand and curses his daughter as he wonders why she married a bloody car mechanic.

One day this city will burst. There will be so much sadness it will be unbearable. Waves of misery will sweep the neighbouring countries as well. We will all drown together, holding hands, being laughed at by the rest of the world. Only in death will we know that we could have been friends, helped each other by burying our nuclear weapons in our deserts until they were forgotten. We have brains, we have guts, but we have left our hearts under the huts of the poor.

Too many new cars have cropped up. They look like tiny colour-ful boxes that have been painted by children. Most of them have a small accident within the first week of purchase. It is a sort of initiation to the city. When I was little we only had the Standard Herald, the Fiat and the Ambassador. The Mercedes, of course, has always been a part of this city. People cannot afford to eat or shit, but they have a Mercedes. I had one, too. But I could eat
and
shit. If you are poor, you keep the food in your system out of fear. You do not let it escape because you do not know when you will get your next meal.

I am right below Viren’s building. It is sea green, although the sea looks dark brown. What will I say to him? Will he even recognize me? He will smell me. There are certain smells you pick up in your childhood that you carry with you for the rest of your life. For me it is the smell of fish. I shall forever associate it with the silence between Mother and Father at the dinner table. I wonder what I smell like to Viren.

I walk toward the lobby of the building. The sea breeze is warm and wonderful, like the laugh of a child. There should be more seas in this world. Fewer boats, though — they eat the laughter of children.

As I look up at the name board to find out what floor Viren lives on, the lift door opens. An old man totters out. He needs a walking stick but looks too proud to use one. Let the fool fall and break his teeth.

Viren lives on the seventh floor. Seven is my lucky number. Actually it is everyone’s lucky number. I am simply avoiding contemplation of my meeting with Viren with thoughts like these. It is like a trip to the dentist, or minor surgery. It has to be done at some point.

Years ago, after the accident, I thought of writing a letter to Viren. I call it an accident because although it was done on purpose, it was not premeditated. My mother taught me that. In her formal, boring, lawyer voice she asked me, “Did you plan on crushing that boy’s fingers?” I loved how Mother never called anyone by their name. Viren was
that boy
. My father was
that man
. Even her lover was
that judge
. “You think I’m having an affair with
that judge?”
It broke my heart to tell her that I saw him atop her, a fat man trying to mount a mare, clumsy, panting, looking around to see if he was making a fool of himself. Anyway, I told Mother I did not plan on hurting Viren. It had just happened. “Then it was an accident,” she told me. So even though Viren’s parents complained to the police, my mother complained to
that judge
, and the police dismissed it as an accident. My surgeon father kept performing operation after operation. At home he cut himself so much while shaving it looked as if the Pakistani government had tortured him. But I did think of writing Viren a letter.