The Storyteller (11 page)

‘
Baksheesh
?’ I thought I might as well try for everything.

‘No—no more. You’ve had enough.’

It was only then that I became aware of the dullness of the khaki half-pants and the thin, hairy legs. I looked up to see a pair of steady eyes gazing at me. ‘No permit!’ The policeman sneered. ‘Blocking the path and creating a nuisance.’ That was my introduction to Ram Lal. We were to know each other for a long time.

A very long time.

‘And you? Why do you look sad?’

He is startled by my observation. ‘Personal misfortune,’ he murmurs. ‘One of my best friends was killed in an accident yesterday.’

‘How can you be certain he was your friend? Did he never lie to you?’

He looks even more aggrieved. A shake of the head and a bland smile.

It’s past midday. The sun has feasted on the cluster of morning hours. The guard, Ramesh, is young and impressionable. I have taken advantage of his kindness.

‘You were about to tell me about your father.’ He rattles the containers of his tiffin-carrier. ‘Was he also a dwarf?’

I pretend not to hear. The last morsel of
chappatti
almost melts in my mouth. An adequate payment for satisfying his curiosity.

Lies. Snatches of imagined happenings. Perceived fragments. Never the complete picture. A dwarf…a vagabond…a dark stranger, driven by an uncontrollable appetite to inject his seeds into an unknown female…I shall never know the certainty of my conception. I am curious about my faceless mother. I tend
to think of her as a beggar girl, wrapping a baby in rags, leaving a bundle in the sand. There must have been a moment of guilt as she responded to the compulsion for survival. Abandonment was probably her only effective reply to Fate.

The bald sky burns with a vengeful intensity. I turn to a prisoner’s meagre ration of food. Half a
roti.
Like a piece of buckled cardboard. It will layer my stomach and prevent it from growling. Casually I stretch out my legs a little further. Quite a satisfactory arrangement, considering that I ought to be working. I have preyed on Ramesh’s inexperience and found shelter under a tamarind tree.

‘This heat can kill.’ He looks nervously at the other prisoners scattered around us. ‘Certain death under this sun.’ I respond slowly, allowing the words to dribble over him and seep into his conscience.

He shifts uneasily. ‘Maybe…maybe, you should…’

‘No one will come out to check on you,’ I assure him. ‘They are sitting under electric fans, sipping iced drinks. A little rest will refresh me. I can work better.’

He mops his brows and unscrews the top of a plastic water bottle. ‘I suppose half an hour won’t matter. But I want you back there, breaking stones again. Don’t try any tricks with the hammer!’

‘I left it on the pile.’ I return his stare. ‘A drink? In return I might tell you all I know about the demise of
good
friends.’

He pours some water into my cupped hands. I drink noisily. A second helping.

‘Did you suffer the same misfortune?’

‘Different, but just as painful.’

Manu…once my friend. Almost as ugly as I was. Fat and short, with a small head and most of his front teeth missing. A mouth blackened by
paan
chewing. The skin on his face was
splotchy, and the tip of a large nose was curved like a hook. A black patch covered his left eye. He lived on the edge of the
bustee
and did not mix with the other dwellers.

We met by chance at the cinema. He was standing behind me in a long queue that had formed for matinee tickets. I didn’t know what the movie was about. A huge poster of a largebosomed girl, kissing a string of pearls, with a man standing over her holding a whip, had determined my afternoon’s entertainment. I stood impatiently, trying to figure out a way to jump ahead in the queue.

‘
Yar
, there won’t be a problem if you discreetly weave your way to the front. Can you buy me a ticket as well? My name is Manu. I have seen you in the
bustee.
’

Indignantly I turned around. It was rare that people could anticipate my thoughts. Manu’s appearance placated me. It was a source of immense comfort to realise that there was someone else who had the potential to experience rejection the way I did. We discovered that we shared a love for the cinema, even though this particular movie did little to enthuse me.

‘I would like to make a film one day,’ I declared pompously, as we sipped
chai
at a roadside stall.

Manu laughed raucously. ‘You could use me as the hero. The love scenes would be authentic. Both the rehearsals and the real thing.’

‘I suppose I could use you. I would like to make a movie about ugly people. There would be lengthy love scenes. Nothing left to the imagination. Sex between two elderly people. He would be bald and wrinkled. A disproportionate body. She would have rolls of fat around her waist. Saggy tits. Yet they would make love with great tenderness.’

That offended Manu. ‘No one would watch such a film. The girl has to be beautiful. Even after a fuck she must appear as if she has not been touched.’

‘Think of all the unattractive people in the world. Wouldn’t they like to be comforted by the tenderness of sex instead of being led to believe that only those who are beautiful can enjoy it?’

Manu didn’t have an answer. He changed the topic and asked me about myself. Manu himself had been to prison several times. ‘In and out,
yar.
Like another home. Just as nasty and uncomfortable. I could swear that the rats in jail are from the same family that breeds in the
bustee.
’

He said he was planning to move out of the
bustee
and go into business.

‘What kind of business?’

‘Whatever can bring maximum profit to both the police and me. Anything that keeps me out of prison.’

We became friends. With brotherly affection he called me
Chotah.
Even when he finally left the
bustee
, I continued to see him sporadically.

I tell Ramesh about the rest of my association with Manu. He is unsettled by my story. He begins to fidget. Guilt and fear have overtaken him. I must be careful. A wrong word, or a sudden move, and he will behave the way he is trained to.

Calm down, boy! You may remember this as you lie dying. A flicker of redemption in the darkness of the sewer.

Noiseless shutters swing into place and close out the world. In the darkness I can swim in the depths of memory.

He coughs nervously. The familiar sound pricks me like poisonous thorns as I remember her face…

‘A sari! A sari!’ Chaman twirled and jumped with the excitement of a child anticipating a new toy. She paused, panting like an exhausted animal. A dry, rasping cough. ‘A
banarsi
! Green or blue…no, red! Any colour! Just to feel its softness against my skin. Its newness would make me feel so clean!’

It was impossible to envisage her dressed in anything but tattered and unwashed clothes during the day. Only in the evenings she changed. For her nocturnal occupation she wore a plain black sari. A sombre uniform for a dark profession.

The delight of the godown’s inmates was evident. They played with coins. Improvised games. Enacting how the rich carelessly spent their rupees. Things that could be bought if they were wealthy. Their ambitions were released in a gush of words, allowing their dreams to expand and breathe. Even Barey Bhai smiled at their childish exuberance, his eyes hawkishly guarding the money he permitted them to use as a stimulant for their fantasies. Soon the coins would be gathered, counted and returned to him.

Extra candles, even a second hurricane, were lit. The strength of the light merely served to accentuate the gloominess of the surroundings. Larger, more ominous, shadows loomed over us as we ate limp
jelabis
to celebrate our success. In the giddiness of the communal triumph, my lack of enthusiasm escaped scrutiny. My late arrival attracted fleeting attention from Chaman. ‘Where were you?’ she asked casually, without looking at me, and then turned back to the make-believe card game with impossibly high stakes. They pretended to be business people, politicians and film stars.

I was the only disgruntled person in the godown. The hurt of an injured pride drained any sense of elation I might have felt that evening. I found it difficult to move my arms, and my back was stiff. My neck ached and my cheeks were bruised. Had I cried and begged forgiveness by grovelling at Ram Lal’s feet, I might have been let off with a severe reprimand and a few whacks on my back and face. Had I carried any money on me, it might have been different. But I was without a
paisa
, stubborn and proud. They had laughed and played with my wig, bundling it into the shape of a ball and kicking it about.
They were convinced that I was a deranged eunuch. With rough hands they stripped me and surprised themselves.

I steeled myself to concentrate on what Chaman was saying. She couldn’t stop babbling about the ease with which she had picked pockets. Lightning Fingers and Nimble Feet concurred, but with more restraint. Farishta pounded the
dholak
as if he were intent on re-living our morning’s performance.

I kept thinking of the money that had been thrown on the mat. The collection must have amounted to a significant sum. That was part of the reason for the police’s interest in me. Now I wanted to know. Questions bubbled and surfaced like mysterious life forms.

Never challenge Barey’s authority. Don’t ever ask what he does not want you to know.

The warning clamoured in my ears. But the thrill of defiance was impossible to subdue. We had earned the money. A payment for the storyteller and his helpers…

We are given food and a place to sleep. Nightly shelter from the monsoonal rain and the bite of winter. We cannot expect any more.

Na ji, na ji, na ji…
That did not satisfy me. Not after what I had suffered.

The police asked me about the cap, wig and satchel.

‘A white man gave them to me.’

Then there was the money.

‘What money?’

A backhander across the face sent me crashing to the floor. A booted foot slammed into my back. Three of them. They lit cigarettes.
The money
?

‘That was a part of the story. A good storyteller can make his audience believe in what is not there.’

I was asked about my helper. The one with the drum.

‘A policeman in disguise.’ I made the mistake of grinning.

A short flight and a heavy landing. My forehead and nose collided with a wall. A heavy foot rested on my neck. There wasn’t any point in resisting. The thick bamboo sticks descended on my back, legs, arms. After the pain, there was the warmth of floating in the night. If this was death, I would have exchanged it with life. Ram Lal kept flicking ashes from his cigarette on my face. Then they spoilt it by splashing me with a bucket of water.

‘We know you can hear us.’ More water. I thought I heard the voice of a mermaid. But how had I reached the sea?

‘Let this be a warning.’ Ram Lal’s voice. ‘No one fools with us. Next time…’ A foot glided over my body.

A monstrous silence.
Next time…
Message incomplete. The threat was conveyed in the darkness of the tone. A sinister promise. Even the hint of an invitation. It was up to me to fill the gap. My move. I wasn’t worthy of being arrested. It was merely a touch-up to remind me of my place in the world. They threw me out of the van at the corner of Lothian Road. My wig, cap and satchel were scattered around me. The van roared away.
Next time…
There would be a next time, but it would not be in a dingy cell. The sun tortured the long afternoon. Faces danced in the shimmering air. Men I yearned to hurt. The heat from the melting tar soothed the ache in my back.

Voices. Hands. A sensation of floating. Flying words flapping their clumsy wings. Injustice. Dignity. Wrong. Redress…Words without meaning. Of little practical use to those who struggled in a dented world where feral instincts and bodily functions were the only measurements of life. Hunger. Cold. Heat blisters. Constant pain. Runny shit. Rock hard dong and the desperate loneliness of masturbation. Oh yes! What I could not explain with any conviction to myself. The retreat inside and the tremors of creation.

Aaargh! It felt as if my back had been touched by a slab of ice. The light…trickles of colour breathed softly. Above me, wooden beams suspended in the air. The abandoned foundations of heaven. A grand design that could never reach fruition. The angels had departed.

‘Drink…’

My head was raised. Iced water. At last! The sun had been drained of its anger. A young maiden resurrected me with the song of the pomegranate tree. I heard the river flowing through the forest of the wild horses. I should have followed its meandering course through the valley. A journey of redemption to the land of the never-fading rainbow. Under the arched colours, my emergence from the husk. The birth of an adult. Tall and resplendent.

The figure in white hovered over me.

‘God?’ I whispered.

‘You are in his house.’

Father Daniel—fat, black and smiling—washed the cuts and dabbed them with cotton wool. No questions. His life was full of silent conjectures. A restraining hand on my shoulder. ‘Rest. No one will hurt you here.’

Was he prone to lying as convincingly as I? Impossible! I had to be the best at something.

My head rested against the coolness of the slate tiles. He covered the cuts with an ointment. He asked me if I could sit up. It wasn’t easy. Gradually the world stopped rotating. My eyes wandered over the rows of high-backed benches to the richly decorated platform at the front. The tranquillity inside the hall was unfamiliar to me. The cleanliness, the symmetry, the order…A holy emptiness. Somewhere a car honked. The sound comforted me.

The size of the timber cross held my attention. Father Daniel noticed my stare.

‘Do you know who that is?’

‘Jesu. He told stories.’

‘He gave up his life to save mankind.’ I blinked incomprehensibly. ‘From eter…eternal damnation!’ Father Daniel spluttered, offended by the ignorance implicit in my silence.

‘He didn’t do a very good job,’ I murmured.

‘What was that?’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a maidservant enter through a side door with a
thal
in her hands. I nodded to indicate my belated acceptance of what Father Daniel had said about Jesu. The problem was that I was undecided whether I was part of mankind. I chose not to express my doubt.

‘Do you know anything about Jesus Christ?’ He motioned the girl to come forward.