Dreams of Rivers and Seas Page 26

  Sudeep says I should cut my hair, THERE, IN THAT PLACE. HA HA HA! A Sikh girl can never do that. By the way, did you know my dad rinses colour in his beard to look more sexy.

  They’ve decided the dowry. A small apartment in Indira Vikas Colony. An apartment! For Jasmeet! I can’t believe it. I didn’t know we had so much money. Gobind is furious. Father told me I am his favourite now. My brother is a disgrace to the family name.

  Oh I am too silly! The dowry is only the DOWN PAYMENT on the apartment. Avinash must pay the mortgage from his salary FOR THIRTY YEARS! The parents are all agreed. They are writing a contract. Today an Australian customer asked if I would send him a photo. I sent him this. Do you think it was wrong?

  John clicks the attachment and a photo appears. It shows a round-cheeked Jasmeet smiling from under very long, thick beautifully brushed hair. There is a flirtatious twist to the corner of the mouth, a wild warmth in the eyes, a small blemish along the line of the upper lip. Since the photo has opened in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, John clicks on the arrows right and left to see what else is stored here: Jasmeet at some kind of ceremony in lavish red; various close-ups of a yellow spider on a web sparkling with dew; diagrams of a steady-state, thermostatic feedback system; Jasmeet dancing at night in garish purple and green on a low stage outside with two other girls; Jasmeet standing beside an older woman against a backdrop of mountain peaks; Jasmeet as a schoolgirl sitting in a rickshaw beside a fat boy; Jasmeet side by side with a conceited young man wearing European clothes, neatly groomed and clean-shaven. John recognises the face from the crematorium, the speaker who nearly fell off the podium. Sudeep.

  Dearest Jasmeet, mightn’t it be that happiness lies in going the way your parents want you to go? I will always give you what help I can, if you decide differently, but experience tells me there is a wisdom in these traditional arrangements. I would be very happy, for example, if my parents had chosen a person like you for me.

  What strange things you say, Albert! How could your parents ever have chosen me?

  What is beautiful is the idea of coming together with a partner without having to act to take her, without calculating or grabbing. That is a great gift.

  My father looks at pornography of boys too! I hate him. And you’re wrong. Vimala is NOT happy with the man her parents have chosen. She told me she thinks he is gay! There are lots of gays but everyone pretends there aren’t. She is definitely in love with you, Albert, you know. She is always talking about you.

  I chose Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Jasmeet, because it’s the story nearest to what we’ve been doing, where nothing happens, everything dissolves into beautiful equivocations. Do you see? Perhaps that’s the only way some stories can go on for a long time without coming to grief. What I want to do is introduce the five pieces we’ve been practising into a sort of Alice frame, like so many dreams. So one of the characters in our stories is always Alice, or an Alice-like person. Do you see? And it is always she who begins the dance, at the right moments, to stop things happening. Then all the other characters dance around her.

  What a mess! Today a man tried to touch my breasts on the bus! They should have buses only women can use, like the train carriages. I stamped on his foot. He was ancient! There was a real hullabaloo!

  I think you made a bad choice making Ananya play Alice and Sudeep thinks so too. She’s so ignorant! She doesn’t really understand your ideas. Do you like her most? I’m sure I could do it better.

  The Australian sent me his photo! He’s called Sean. He’s really gorgeous. What do you think? Maybe too old for me!

  John clicked on an attachment and opened a JPEG showing a sporty type, in his late thirties, with white shirt open on a solid chest, square, complacent face, a determined sincerity about the eyes.

  Maybe we should play a play about me and Sudeep and Vimala. Except that might be dangerous! It could end with me killing him! Really!

  Jasmeet, what do you want me to tell you about marriage? I can’t help you. It’s something people do impulsively in Western culture because no one offers a clear path for us and we wouldn’t follow it if they did. Helen and I met when she was your age and I was a bit older. She wanted to be a doctor in poor countries and I admired her very much. We had many fascinating years travelling around and dealing with all kinds of situations. You imagine there are just people who are ill and need help and instead you find complicated political and cultural tangles. You have to negotiate with gangs who want to protect your clinic or control who works there. There’s always a local doctor who spreads bad rumours about you. In Kenya they tried to burn our clinic down.

  Reading this, John reflects that his father never said any of this stuff to him. He knew nothing about an attempt to burn their clinic. All the same, Jasmeet isn’t satisfied.

  You’re not telling me very much, Mr Albert! You know I want to know more. What about sex? Did you ever betray your wife? Please tell me. Wouldn’t you like to have sex with Vimala when she comes to your house? It must be soooooooo tempting. I know my father would. My mother would never let a maid like Vimala anywhere near our apartment. She is too beautiful. I told Sudeep, one day a woman will castrate him! He is an animal!

  Would you like to come and see me dance, Albert? There is an evening of bhangra to celebrate an anniversary. I’m quite wild when I dance to bhangra. You won’t believe it. You could bring your wife.

  Sex is beautiful, Jasmeet, but difficult, and sex between people over many years is a thing that comes and goes.

  I’d get bored. Perhaps I’m a rascal like my father! Maybe that’s why I hate him sometimes. Because I am like him. Anyway, I don’t want to be like my mother. She is a doormat! You know Jamal stopped me outside the toilet and told me he fancies me like mad! It’s too crazy. Surely, I’ll never kiss a Muslim!

  Albert, I just read your message about sex again. I think it is very sad. My dad told me you had talked to him about a serious problem. Are you ill, Albert? I wish I could make you better.

  Yes, Jasmeet, yes, it seems I am ill.

  John stands and goes to the window. The air is swirling with smut and ripples of sand are running like water along the uneven road. He doesn’t like reading these messages. Heading for the door, he hesitates, stops, turns and, scrolling up the endless list, clicks at random.

  Re: Re: Re: Update

  On 25 October 2005, at 17:55, Jasmeet Singh wrote

  Albert! You know you’re too funny when you mimic Sudeep. Really, you’re as sexy as he is!

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Update

  On 25 October 2005, at 18:43, Albert James wrote

  I love your slim hands, Jasmeet. And how nice to have tea together!

  John shakes his head, clicks again.

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Update

  On 25 October 2005, at 19:15, Jasmeet Singh wrote

  And I love your eyes, Albert, when you are always looking at me. There is something mad about them.

  John is on the edge of a precipice. He doesn’t want to click again, but he does; it’s a message from early November. His eyes flicker reluctantly over a full screen of type.

  … as if I were dissolving into beauty, Jasmeet. Jasmeet! Sweet flower. When …

  John forces himself to his feet and stumbles away along the corridor. He leaves in such haste he doesn’t even stop to snap the padlock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘MR JOHN!’

  Only as he pushed open the door to the stairs did he realise the girl was sitting in the lobby. She was struggling to her feet.

  ‘You have read it all?’

  ‘I thought you’d gone to work,’ he says.

  ‘I lost my job when I was in hospital, Mr John. You have read the messages? I was waiting for you.’

  ‘Some,’ he says. ‘I’m going to my mother’s now.’

  The girl’s eyes open wide. The head wobbles slightly. ‘Why? Why are you doing that?’

  ‘Is that Mr James?’

  From a dark corridor behind him
, the older of the hotel’s receptionists appeared. The owner quite probably. ‘Excuse me, Mr James.’

  John turned. Fingering a necklace, the woman squeezed behind the desk and opened the big register. ‘You are being with us a week now, sir, I think. We ask payment by the week. How long are you planning to stay now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ John hesitated. ‘A couple more days?’

  The woman showed him a bill with 6,800 scribbled at the bottom. Rupees. John can’t calculate how much that is. His mind is not functioning. ‘There is also the breakfast,’ she says. ‘We have to insist on payment at the end of each week, sir. You understand.’ Beside her a phone began to ring. She picked it up. ‘Govind Hotel. Good afternoon.’

  The Sikh girl has limped up behind John and touches his elbow. ‘Why are you going to your mother?’

  ‘I’ll pay this evening,’ John tells the receptionist as she puts a hand over the receiver. It has crossed his mind he must take cash out before giving them his credit card. He mustn’t be left without cash.

  Jasmeet seems on the edge of hysteria. ‘You can’t go out in that dust. Haven’t you seen the storm, Mr John? You can’t.’

  ‘I have to see my mother.’

  As he walked towards the door, she hobbled after him. ‘Mr John, don’t you like me?’ The stairwell is stifling. ‘Do stop, please! For the sake of your father!’

  John turned and drew a deep breath. Jasmeet is standing a flight of steps above.

  ‘It’s not a question of liking,’ he said.

  Seeing him undecided, she turned on a truly radiant smile and was hopping down towards him like a wounded bird, one hand pressed against the wall to keep her balance. There is no handrail. ‘You talk just like Albert,’ she said brightly, hopping and swaying. ‘You have the same voice.’

  When she was beside him she stood and smiled; her teeth were brilliant; then reached out and straightened his tee-shirt. It had got hitched up on one side. Her wrists were slim in the glitter of a dozen coloured bracelets. Her fingers rested a moment on his chest.

  ‘I want to go to England. I have a passport and a visa. I have all my money. Let me travel with you.’

  John turned away again and began to hurry down the stairs, but at once he slowed and let her catch up. ‘How come you had my father’s computer?’ he asked abruptly. Then it occurred to him he hadn’t even looked to see if there was any work in progress on the thing.

  ‘You have not read the last message?’ She held his arm to steady herself. ‘He told me to take it. He told me where he would leave it. He was dying. He didn’t want other people to see.’

  ‘So why did you bring it to me?’

  She hesitated. ‘I need help, Mr John. Albert was always saying he would help me if I decided to leave. You are his son. I thought you would help.’

  John shook his head. The girl is a distraction. The whole of India has been a terrible distraction from the work he should be doing. He must have it out with his mother and get back to London and to work.

  Again John started down the stairs. She was hurrying after him. There are four stale, stifling floors, the stairway turning and turning past old brown doors, their feet clattering in the heat. At the bottom, at the end of a long corridor, a man in uniform was leaning against the wall. Seeing them hurry to the door, he said something to the girl in Hindi and she replied with a note of exasperation.

  ‘He says it is a bad storm.’

  John pulled open the big door. As he stepped out into a gale of dust, he realised he had left his mobile in the room. He’ll miss Elaine’s messages. It doesn’t matter. Elaine too is a distraction. Only essentials matter. Only the coming collision. Behind him Jasmeet grabbed his shirt. ‘Mr John! Wait!’

  In the street the dust came thickly in sharp dry gusts, then swirled and sifted like dark snow. He walked fast. There were moments when everything was brown and impenetrable, then the road reappeared with moving shadows of cycles and cars and rickshaws. John had almost reached the taxi stand when he remembered he needed cash. He needs a cash dispenser. He turned a corner and walked. Where did he get money last time? There was the usual cacophony of horns. A cow had sheltered behind a parked truck. Jasmeet was still limping behind, covering her face with her scarf. John can’t decide what to do about her. He cannot decide. Then a gust brought so much grit he found his mouth full of it and turned for shelter to a doorway. The wind was furious. He was grinding sand between his teeth. Jasmeet came, bent double, loose clothes flapping.

  ‘Come in here,’ she said. ‘Come in here, Mr John.’

  It is some kind of eating place. A ceiling fan turned. There was a small old wooden counter and high shelves with tins and jars behind greasy glass: on every surface there are adverts that seem to have come out of the fifties for cigarettes and soft drinks. The tables were wooden and an elderly man was sitting reading a book.

  ‘Let’s stay here,’ Jasmeet said.

  Trying to wipe the dust from his lips, John sat down. There was a crustiness round his nostrils and in the corners of his eyes. All in a minute’s walking. Beyond the tables, the floor rose a couple of steps and there were men sitting on the ground eating from the same large dish, talking quietly.

  Jasmeet shook the dust from her scarf. The room was hot. The old wooden chairs are rickety. ‘It’s an Iranian place,’ she says in a low voice. ‘They will have nice cakes.’

  John’s frustration is mounting. What on earth am I doing here? He wants resolution. Automatically, his hand moves for his phone and finds once again it isn’t there.

  ‘How can I help? Please?’ The old man scraped his chair and looked up over spectacles from his book. As he spoke, a dark shape whisked across the floor. It shot from beneath the counter and disappeared under shelves in the far corner.

  ‘We would like tea and cakes,’ Jasmeet says.

  ‘I have no money,’ John protests. He would rather have a Coke. He hasn’t had a Coke for weeks.

  ‘I can pay,’ Jasmeet smiles. ‘Don’t worry!’

  Now the girl seems prim and pleased with herself. These shifts from anxiety to confidence are confusing John. Did the others see the rat or not? It was definitely a rat. He tries to focus on the girl as she folds her scarf around her hair again. They both have sand on their lips, round their nostrils.

  ‘Have you really left home?’ he asks.

  The waiter, or perhaps proprietor, was getting to his feet. One of the men at the far end of the room came down towards the door, said a few words, looked out at the storm, grimaced and went back.

  ‘Yes. I told you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘So where are you going to sleep?’

  ‘Last night I slept in the lobby of your hotel. I arrived very late.’

  ‘But why did you leave?’

  ‘You have read the messages. You will understand.’

  John found it hard to match the girl in front of him with the writer of the emails. Jasmeet is looking at him eagerly, her mouth nervously alive, eyes bright.

  ‘I want to choose my life,’ she says. ‘You must understand that.’

  ‘You could go to Sudeep.’

  She sat up dramatically. ‘Sudeep tried to kill me after what happened with Albert!’

  ‘He knows? Sudeep?’

  ‘Everybody knows! They were all jealous.’ Jasmeet giggles. ‘I could marry you, Mr John, and stay in London!’ She hesitates. ‘If I close my eyes when you speak it could be Albert.’

  ‘But Sudeep came to the funeral. He said nice things about my father.’

  ‘Sudeep said it was me killed him. It was my fault. I had destroyed a very great man. He loved Albert. He called me a bitch.’

  John can’t think what to say. When the proprietor sets a tray on the table he feels ill. His bowels. Suddenly, he needs to go to the bathroom. The man smiled at Jasmeet who smiled prettily back and began to pour the tea into cracked cups from an elaborate china pot.

  The girl drank and nibble
d a rather dry cake, looking at him. Again she lowered her face to the food rather than bringing it up to her mouth. She dipped the cake in her tea and sucked it. She looks squirrelish. And she has an odd way of swaying slightly while she sits, as if moving to music that he can’t hear.

  John needs the bathroom.

  ‘Albert was in love with me,’ Jasmeet eventually said. She still has food in her mouth. ‘But he kept saying it was a catastrophe. He kept drinking so much whisky. There was a big fight with me and Sudeep. He said he would kill me. The play was ruined. Everything cancelled. Maybe it is my fault. While my father was in London we went to the Neemrana. Albert took me. It was very exciting. Neemrana is a palace fort, on the road to Jaipur. I told you. There are pretty green birds and a swimming pool. The food is really too nice. And beautiful rooms with beautiful old furniture. Very old. Albert was so happy, he ate a lot, but also he kept saying it was a catastrophe. He kept drinking. He was ill.’

  The girl sighed deeply. ‘I wanted Albert to take me to England. Nobody has ever been so nice to me. His voice was exactly like yours, Mr John. It was very beautiful to be with him. He talked about all the places we were going to go, then he said it was a catastrophe. It was a word he used so much.’

  She paused.

  ‘Albert said he was sure we were going away, to live away together. He was happy. He was writing a letter to tell you about us. That we were going away. Then he could never finish this letter. He told me perhaps the letter was not for you. I was upset. He kept writing other things too. There was an old desk in our room. Albert couldn’t sleep. He was having strange dreams. He kept waking up. He was happy, he said, but he couldn’t sleep because of his dreams. He was trying to write them down.’