A ridge of purplish scar tissue was prominent on the brown skin of his forehead. His dark eyes moved in their deep hollows like hunted things, constantly seeking concealment. His ears looked as though they’d been chewed by some beast that had blunted its teeth on them, and given up the task. His most striking feature was his nose, an instrument so huge and magnificently pendulous that is seemed designed for some purpose altogether more grand than merely inhaling air and fragrances. I thought him ugly, then, when I first knew him, not so much for the unbeautiful set of his features as for their joylessness. It seemed to me that I’d never seen a human face in which the smile had been so utterly defeated.
The chillum returned to me for the third time, but the smoke was hot and tasted foul. I announced that it was finished. Nazeer seized it from me roughly and puffed with furious determination, managing to extract a dirty brown cloud of smoke. He tapped the gitak stone out onto his palm to reveal a tiny residue of white ash. Making sure that I was watching, he blew the ash from his hand to the ground at my feet, cleared his throat menacingly and then left us.
‘Nazeer doesn’t like me very much.’
Khaderbhai laughed. It was a sudden and very youthful laugh. I liked it, and I was moved to join him, though I didn’t really understand why he was laughing.
‘Do you like Nazeer?’ he asked, still laughing.
‘No, I guess I don’t,’ I answered, and we laughed all the harder.
‘You do not want to teach Tariq English, because you do not want the responsibility,’ he said, when the laughter had subsided.
‘It’s not just that … well, yes, it is just that. It’s …’ I looked into those golden eyes, pleading with them. ‘I’m not very good with responsibility. And this … this is a lot of responsibility. It’s too much. I can’t do it.’
He smiled, and reached out to rest his hand on my forearm.
‘I understand. You are worried. It is natural. You are worried that something might happen to Tariq. You are worried that you will lose your freedom to go where you want, and to do what you want. This is only natural.’
‘Yes,’ I murmured, relieved. He did understand. He knew that I couldn’t do what he asked. He was going to let me off the hook. Sitting there, on the low stool beside his chair, I had to look up at him, and I felt at some disadvantage. I also felt a sudden rush of affection for him, an affection that seemed to proceed from and depend upon the inequalities between us. It was vassal-love, one of the strongest and most mysterious human emotions.
‘Very well. My decision is this, Lin—you will take Tariq with you, and have him remain with you for two days. If, after this forty-eight hours, you think it is impossible for the situation to continue, you will bring him back here, and I will ask no more of you. But I am sure that he will be no problem to you. My nephew is a fine boy.’
‘Your … nephew?’
‘Yes, the fourth son of my youngest sister, Farishta. He is eleven years old. He has learned some English words, and he speaks Hindi, Pashto, Urdu, and Marathi fluently. He is not so tall for his age, but he is most sturdy in his health.’
‘Your nephew—,’ I began again, but he cut me off quickly.
‘If you find that you can do this thing for me, you will see that my dear friend in the zhopadpatti, Qasim Ali Hussein—you know him, of course, as the head man—he will help you in every way. He will arrange for some families, including his own, to share your responsibility, and provide homes for the boy to sleep in, as well as your own. There will be many friends to help you look after Tariq. I want him to know the hardest life of the poorest people. But above all, I want him to have the experience of an English teacher. This last thing means a great deal to me. When I was a boy …’
He paused, allowing his gaze to shift and settle on the fountain and the wet surface of the great, round boulder. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the liquid light on the stone. Then a grave expression passed across them like a cloud-shadow slinking over smooth hills, on a sunny day.
‘So, forty-eight hours,’ he sighed, bringing himself to the moment.‘After that, if you bring him back to me, I will not think the worse of you. Now it is time for you to meet the boy.’
Khaderbhai gestured toward the arches of the cloister, behind me, and I turned to see that the boy was already standing there. He was small for his age. Khaderbhai had said that he was eleven years old, but he seemed to be no more than eight. Dressed in clean, pressed kurta-pyjama and leather sandals, he clutched a tied calico bundle in his arms. He stared at me with such a forlorn and distrustful expression that I thought he might burst into tears. Khaderbhai called him forward, and the boy approached us, making a wide detour around me to the far side of his uncle’s chair. The closer he came, the more miserable he seemed. Khaderbhai spoke to him sternly and swiftly in Urdu, pointing at me several times. When he finished, the boy walked to my stool and extended his hand to me.
‘Hello very much,’ he said, his eyes huge with reluctance and fear.
I shook hands with him, his small hand vanishing in mine. Nothing ever fits the palm so perfectly, or feels so right, or inspires so much protective instinct as the hand of a child.
‘Hello to you, too, Tariq,’ I said, smiling in spite of myself.
His eyes flickered a tiny, hopeful smile in response, but doubt quickly smothered it. He looked back to his uncle. It was a look of desperate unhappiness, drawing his closed mouth wide and pulling his small nose in so tightly that it showed white at the corners.
Khaderbhai returned the look, staring strength into the boy, then stood up and called for Nazeer once more in that half-shout.
‘You will forgive me, Mr. Lin. There are a number of matters that require my urgent attentions. I will expect you in two days, if you are not happy, na? Nazeer will show you out.’
He turned without looking at the boy, and strode off into the shadowed arches. Tariq and I watched him leave, each of us feeling abandoned and betrayed. Nazeer walked with us to the door. As I changed into my street shoes, Nazeer knelt and pressed the boy to his chest with surprising and passionate tenderness. Tariq clung to him, grabbing his hair, and had to be prised from the embrace with some force. When we stood once more, Nazeer gave me a look of eloquent, lingering menace —If anything happens to this boy, you will answer to me for it—and turned away from us.
A minute later we were outside, on the street beside the Nabila Mosque, boy and man joined tightly at the hand but in nothing else except our bewilderment at the power of the personality that had pushed us together against our wills. Tariq had simply been obedient, but there was something craven in my helplessness to resist Khaderbhai. I’d capitulated too readily, and I knew it. Self-disgust quickly became self-righteousness. How could he do this to a child, I asked myself, his own nephew, give him up so easily to a stranger? Didn’t he see how reluctant the boy was? It’s a callous disregard for the rights and well-being of a child. Only a man who thought of others as his playthings, would surrender a child to someone like … like me.
Furious at my feeble pliancy—How did I let him force me to do this?—and burning with spite and selfishness, I dragged Tariq along at a jogging trot as I marched through the swarming street. Just as we passed the main entrance to the mosque, the muezzin began to recite the call to prayer from the minarets above our heads.
Allah hu Akbar Allah hu Akbar
Allah hu Akbar Allah hu Akbar
Ash-hadu an-la Ila ha-illallah
Ash-hadu an-la Ila ha-illallah
God is great, God is great
I bear witness that there is no god but God …
Tariq tugged at my wrists with both hands, pulling me to a stop. He pointed at the entrance to the mosque, and then to the tower above it, where loudspeakers amplified the voice of the muezzin. I shook my head, and told him we had no time. He planted his feet and tugged harder at my wrist. I told him in Hindi and Marathi that I wasn’t a Muslim, and I didn’t want to enter the mosque. He was adamant, straining to drag me toward
the doorway until the veins stood out at his temples. At last he broke free from my grip and scampered up the steps of the mosque. Kicking his sandals aside, he darted inside before I could stop him.
Frustrated and wavering, I hesitated at the large, open archway of the mosque. I knew that it was permitted for non-believers to enter. People of any faith may enter any mosque and pray, or meditate, or simply admire and wonder. But I knew that the Muslims regarded themselves as a minority under siege in the predominantly Hindu city. Violent confrontations between religionists were common enough. Prabaker warned me, once, that clashes had occurred between militant Hindus and Muslims outside that very mosque.
I had no idea what to do. I was certain there were other exits, and if the boy decided to run off there would be little chance of finding him. A throbbing dread drummed in my heart at the thought that I might have to return to Khaderbhai and tell him I’d lost his nephew, not a hundred metres from where he’d entrusted the boy to me.
Just as I made up my mind to go inside and search the mosque, Tariq came into view, passing from right to left across the huge, ornately tiled vestibule. His hands, feet, and head were wet, and it seemed that he’d washed himself hurriedly. Leaning as far into the entrance as I dared, I saw the boy take up a position at the rear of a group of men, and begin his prayers.
I sat down on an empty push-cart, and smoked a cigarette. To my great relief, Tariq emerged after a few minutes, collected his sandals, and came over to join me. Standing very close to me, he looked up into my face and gave me a smile-frown; one of those splendidly contradictory expressions that only children seem to master, as if he were afraid and happy at the same time.
‘Zuhr! Zuhr!’ he said, indicating that it was the time of the noon prayer. His voice was remarkably firm for such a small child. ‘I am thank you for God. Are you thank you for God, Linbaba?’
I knelt on one knee in front of him, and seized his arms. He winced, but I didn’t relax the grip. My eyes were angry. I knew that my face looked hard and perhaps even cruel.
‘Don’t you ever do that again!’ I snapped at him, in Hindi. ‘Don’t you ever run away from me again!’
He frowned at me, defiant and afraid. Then his young face hardened into the mask we use to fight back tears. I saw his eyes fill, and one tear escaped to roll down his flushed cheek. I stood, and took a step away from him. Glancing around me, I saw that a few men and women had stopped on the street to stare at us. Their expressions were grave, although not yet alarmed. I reached out to offer the boy an open palm. He put his hand in mine, reluctantly, and I struck out along the street toward the nearest taxi stand.
I turned once to look over my shoulder, and saw that the people were following us with their eyes. My heart was beating fast. A viscid mix of emotions boiled in me, but I knew that most of it was rage, and most of the anger was at myself. I stopped, and the boy stopped with me. I breathed deeply for a few moments, fighting for reasonable control. When I looked down at him, Tariq was staring at me intently with his head cocked to one side.
‘I’m sorry I got angry with you, Tariq,’ I said calmly, repeating the words in Hindi. ‘I won’t do it again. But please, please don’t run away from me like that. It makes me very scared and worried.’
The boy grinned at me. It was the first real smile he gave me. I was startled to see that it was very similar to Prabaker’s lunar disk of a smile.
‘Oh, God help me,’ I said, sighing all the way from the core of my bones. ‘Not another one.’
‘Yes, okay very much!’ Tariq agreed, shaking my hand with gymnastic enthusiasm. ‘God help you, and me, all day, please!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘WHEN WILL SHE BE BACK?’
‘How should I know? Not long, maybe. She said to wait.’
‘I don’t know. It’s getting late. I gotta get this kid home to bed.’
‘Whatever. It’s all the same to me, Jack. She said to wait, that’s all.’
I glanced at Tariq. He didn’t look tired, but I knew he had to be getting sleepy. I decided that a rest was a good idea before the walk home. We kicked off our shoes and entered Karla’s house, closing the street door behind us. I found some chilled water in the large, old-fashioned refrigerator. Tariq accepted a glass, and sat down on a pile of cushions to flip through a copy of India Today magazine.
Lisa was in Karla’s bedroom, sitting on the bed with her knees drawn up. She was wearing a red silk pyjama jacket, and nothing else. A patch of her blonde pubic hair was visible, and I glimpsed reflexively over my shoulder to make sure that the boy couldn’t see into the room. She cradled a bottle of Jack Daniels in her folded arms. Her long curly hair was tied up into a lopsided bun. She was staring at me with an expression of calculated appraisal, one eye almost closed. It reminded me of the look that marksmen concentrate on their targets in a firing range.
‘So where’d ya get the kid?’
I sat on a straight-backed chair, straddling it, so that my forearms could rest on the back.
‘I sort of inherited him. I’m doing someone a favour.’
‘A favour?’ she asked, as if the word was a euphemism for some kind of infection.
‘Yeah. A friend of mine asked me to teach the kid a little English.’
‘So, what’s he doing here? Why isn’t he at home?’
‘I’m supposed to keep him with me. That’s how he’s supposed to learn.’
‘You mean keep him with you all the time? Everywhere you go?’
‘That’s the deal. But I’m hoping to give him back after two days. I don’t know how I got talked into it in the first place, really.’
She laughed out loud. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. The state she was in gave it a forced and almost vicious edge. Still, the heart of it was rich and full, and I thought it might’ve been a nice laugh, once. She took a swig from the bottle, exposing one round breast with the movement.
‘I don’t like kids,’ she said proudly, as if she was announcing that she’d just received some distinguished award. She took another long drink. The bottle was half full. I realised that she was early drunk, in that squall of coherence before slurred speech and clumsiness and collapse.
‘Look, I just want to get my clothes,’ I muttered, looking around the bedroom for them. ‘I’ll pick them up, and come back and see Karla another time.’
‘I’ll make you a deal, Gilbert.’
‘The name’s Lin,’ I insisted, although that, too, was a false name.
‘I’ll make you a deal, Lin. I’ll tell you where your clothes are, if you agree to put them on here, in front of me.’
We didn’t like each other. We stared across the kind of bristling hostility that’s sometimes as good as, or better than, mutual attraction.
‘Assuming you can handle it,’ I drawled, grinning in spite of myself, ‘what’s in it for me?’
She laughed again, and it was stronger, and more honest.
‘You’re all right, Lin. Get me some water, will ya? The more of this stuff I drink, the goddamn thirstier I get.’
On my way to the small kitchen, I checked on Tariq. The boy had fallen asleep. His head was tipped back onto the cushions, and his mouth was open. One hand was curled up under his chin, and the other still grasped weakly at the magazine. I removed it, and covered him with a light woollen shawl that was hanging from a set of hooks. He didn’t stir, and seemed to be deep in sleep. In the kitchen I took a bottle of chilled water from the refrigerator, snatched up two tumblers, and returned to the bedroom.
‘The kid’s asleep,’ I said, handing her a glass. ‘I’ll let him crash for a while. If he doesn’t wake up by himself, I’ll get him up later.’
‘Sit here,’ she commanded, patting at the bed beside her. I sat. She watched me over the rim of her glass as I drank first one, then a second full glass of the iced water.
‘The water’s good,’ she said, after a while. ‘Have you noticed that the water’s good here? I mean, really good. You’d expect it to be fucking s
lime, I mean being Bombay and India and all. People are so scared of the water, but it’s really much better than the chemical-tasting horse-piss that comes outta the faucet back home.’
‘Where is home?’
‘What the fuck difference does it make?’ She watched me frown impatiently, and added quickly, ‘Don’t get mad, keep your goddamn shirt on. I’m not tryin’ to be a smart-ass. I really mean it—what difference does it make? I’ll never go back there, and you’ll never go there in the first place.’
‘I guess not.’
‘God it’s hot! I hate this time of the year. It’s always worst just before the monsoon. It makes me crazy. Doesn’t this weather make you crazy? This is my fourth monsoon. You start to count in monsoons after you’ve been here a while. Didier is a nine-monsoon guy. Can you believe that? Nine fucking monsoons in Bombay. How about you?’
‘This is my second. I’m looking forward to it. I love the rain, even if it does turn the slum into a swamp.’
‘Karla told me you live in one of the slums. I don’t know how you can stand it—that stink, all those people living on top of each other. You’d never get me inside one of those places.’
‘Like most things, and most people, it’s not as bad as it looks from the outside.’
She let her head fall onto one shoulder, and looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression. Her eyes glittered in a radiant, almost inviting smile, but her mouth was twisted in a disdainful sneer.
‘You’re a real funny guy, Lin. How did you really get hooked up with that kid?’