The Elephanta Suite

  "Hello, my friend."

  She winked at him. She knew why he was there. She didn't even ask him to follow her. She kept walking, and he was a step behind her. He hated himself, hated the thought that she knew him so well, but he told himself that it was necessary. He did not want to speak to her, and it was not until they reached the lane and stepped onto the porch of the stone house that she said, "Sumitra."

  "But no dancing."

  "As you wish."

  The girl's dancing, the singularity of it, the glow of her soul in her whitened face, had upset him. He had not expected such seriousness, such concentration, such formality. The whole performance and the piercing notes of the music broke his heart and made her seem hopeless, using this brilliant skill to attract him for sex and money.

  He gave the old woman a thousand rupees in an envelope, reminded himself that it was twenty dollars, and let her show him upstairs. As she left him at the door, he tried to read her face. He suspected that she despised him, but she gave nothing away.

  The room was the same: the mattress, the tape player plugged into the wall under the portrait of the fierce, toothy, blackish-faced deity. Dwight waited, shuffling, too nervous to sit, and then the far door opened and Sumitra appeared and stepped forward.

  She did not smile. She looked summoned, a little reluctant, like someone sent on an errand, which Dwight thought was exactly the case. But this time she wore a headdress, a sort of lacy veil, and her makeup was more carefully applied. She was barefoot and her anklets jingled as she came over to him. He leaned to kiss her.

  "No," she said, and averted her eyes, moved her head sideways with a pinched face, as though reacting to a bad smell.

  She started the music and stood, one leg crooked, her arms upraised, to begin her dance.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I am dance," she said.

  "No dance." He took her by the hand and set her down at the edge of the mattress, wishing that her anklets did not sound so merry. He had another envelope of money ready. He placed it in her hand.

  Sumitra stared at him and tucked it into a fold of her thick skirt where there must have been a pocket.

  No "thank you," hardly an acknowledgment, just a sullen blinking of her yellow eyes within a shadow of mascara and a little nod of her head. How many other men had sat here and done this?

  He had planned to give her the money and leave, but with her sitting next to him, her knees drawn up, her head bowed, the powder of her makeup prickling on his arm, she was like a cat in his lap. He could not get up, could not bear to abandon her.

  The warmth of her body warmed his hands, the slightness of her figure aroused him. He fumbled with her clothes, to hold her. She squirmed slightly, and he guessed that she was resisting him, and he almost apologized. Then he saw that she was letting down the shoulder straps of her bodice, baring her small breasts for him. After that, he felt her hands on him, in a routinely practiced way, like someone feeling an obscure parcel, squeezing it to reveal what's inside. Even though he recognized how mechanical an act this was, and despised himself for sitting through it, he was aroused. He let her do what she did well; she was intent, and silent, and then she spat on the floor.

  "See you again," the old woman said when he went downstairs.

  The other children were staring at him in the vestibule. He said nothing, he was too ashamed, he thought, Never again, and was nauseated by the stinging reek of urine and cow dung in the narrow lane.

  All through the following day he reminded himself that he was corrupt and weak. He felt sorrowful whenever he thought of Sumitra, her yellow eyes and small shoulders and thin fingers with the chipped polish on her fingernails. This sad and sentimental feeling penetrated him with the sense that he belonged in India and nowhere else, that he had begun to live there in a way that he could not explain to anyone.

  "That man Blunden," Shah said.

  What man Blunden? Dwight thought. He had paid no attention to business these past few days. The name rang no bell.

  Seeing his vagueness, Shah explained, "American man. He wanted information on outsourcing for his housewares catalogue. Pricings for commodities and products."

  "Yes?"

  "He was Rishikesh side."

  "And?"

  "A happenstance has occurred."

  "Can't we do something?"

  "He has met with accident."

  "Serious?"

  "He has left his body."

  That was the Indian surprise. India attracted you, fooled you, subverted you, then, if it did not succeed in destroying you with the unexpected, it left you so changed as to be unrecognizable. Or it ignited a fury in you, as it had in Sheely, who hated the very name of the place, and spat when he said it. Or it roused your pity and left you with a sadness that clung like a fever. Even the simplest sight of it. He had watched an American woman enter the Taj lobby weeping after the drive from Mumbai Airport, her first experience of India, those five or so miles, the stretch of shanties, that had once shocked Dwight.

  I'd like to leave my body, Dwight thought. He was a lost soul, but he was also reminded that for the past two days he had conquered his fear of India—in fact, felt possessed by it, weirdly vitalized, with something bordering on obsession. His body was a stranger he inhabited, but a risk-taking stranger.

  I can't help myself, he wanted to tell Shah. But Shah was pious; he would be shocked, as a family man, a Jain, someone who had never allowed himself to be led into a dingy room for sex with a skinny girl.

  But what did Shah know of passion? Dwight could not explain how he was both attracted and repelled, like a drunkard with a bottle, sick from the pleasure of it, knowing the thrill, knowing the consequences. But no consequences could outweigh the ecstasy of the drink; no anticipated shame could prevent him from seeing the girl again. So there was shame in his desire, but his desire was stronger.

  He couldn't help himself. He drifted back to the Gateway of India at nightfall, and he loitered with the peculiarly unhurried walk of someone trawling for a woman, someone going nowhere. The old woman was not there. He felt sick at the idea that she'd found another man, yet that had to be the case. He was disgusted and gloomy, his vision clouded by his distress. He felt sorry for himself and for the girl Sumitra. He almost said aloud, "I should have given her more money."

  A young woman was staring at him. She wore a white dress, knee length, like a nurse's, with a white belt and white shoes and knee socks. She did not look away when he stared back at her; she came nearer.

  Instinctively he clapped his hands to the pocket where he kept his money, suspecting a thief. They worked in pairs, he knew that; and he knew how elaborate their scams were—some threw shit, some carried razors. Where was this one's pimp? What was her ruse? The lump of his wallet on one side, the diamond wedding ring in its purse on the other—there was a safe for valuables in his suite, but he had not broken the habit of carrying the rejected ring.

  He bought a bottle of Thums Up so that he could delay and have a look at the girl. The soda wallah seemed to recognize him, greeted him heartily, and then hissed at the girl. But she shrugged, and though she walked a few steps away, Dwight could see that she was lingering.

  Using the bottle as a prop, he carried it to the edge of the walkway beyond the Gateway and pretended to be interested in the boats in the sea, their bows to the wind. He sipped and was calmed by the setting sun, the light breeze, the smell of roasted nuts on braziers, the sight of strolling families, the popcorn trolley, the energy of the boys jumping from the parapet into the frothy water. Lost in the rhythms of this activity, he felt his need for Sumitra leaving him.

  "Please, sir."

  The girl in the white nurse's uniform was next to him, putting on a pained pleading face. Why was she wearing this white dress and not a sari? Her hair was plaited into a long braid that lay against her back.

  "Give me money, sir."

  She was neither a girl nor a woman, seventeen maybe, older than Sumitra anyway, a
ttractive and primly dressed, an unlikely beggar, more like a hospital worker or a dental assistant in her knee socks and white shoes.

  "What is your country, sir?"

  Dwight turned away, feeling self-conscious. He wanted her to keep walking so that he could examine his diminishing ardor for Sumitra. He had come to search for her, and now he had concluded that the old woman had found someone else.

  "I am hungry, sir."

  "What's your name?"

  "Indru, sir."

  "Do you work at a hospital?"

  "Hair and nail salon, sir. But my money is gone."

  "Here," Dwight said, and handed his bottle of Thums Up to her.

  As though disgusted, she stepped back and shook her head.

  "Why not?"

  "You have taken some, sir. I cannot take from selfsame bottle."

  He was not offended but impressed that she would not share the same bottle: she was both a beggar and a chooser!

  "I must have my own bottle," she said.

  "If I buy you a drink, what will you give me?"

  He said it without thinking, without knowing what he meant. It was reckless, but he was in India. Who cared? On fine days, walking to the office, he had often encountered panhandlers on Boston Common, sometimes women, now and then young and attractive, if a bit grubby. He would never have dared to engage one in conversation or ask for something.

  Indru smoothed her dress and said, "What is it you want, sir?"

  "Think about it."

  He gave her some money for a bottle of soda, a hundred-rupee note—he had nothing smaller. Handing it over, seeing her become submissive and polite, bowing to him, he felt powerful and at the same time annoyed with himself for even caring.

  Yet he sat on a bench and watched Indru buy a bottle of soda, and he was not surprised when she returned and sat next to him.

  "Where do you live?"

  "Far from here."

  "Where are your parents?"

  "In village, sir."

  "Why is everyone always asking for money?"

  "No work, sir."

  "But you work in a salon."

  "Casual work, sir. Not enough."

  "What kind of work can you do?"

  "I can do anything, sir. What you like?"

  He knew he had gone too far. As he raised his bottle and prepared to toss it into a trash barrel, the soda wallah hurried over—he must have been watching—and lifted it from Dwight's hand. Just then, looking up, he saw across the road, four floors up, his Elephanta Suite, and in the distance, looming above the other buildings, the big bright windows on the top floor of Jeejeebhoy Towers. He got up and started to walk away.

  "Where are you going, sir?"

  "Got work to do."

  He walked quickly past the Gateway crowd, through the taxi rank and the traffic, then onto the sidewalk, where there was a guardrail. People plucked at his sleeve, not just beggars but shopkeepers—"In here, sir. All kinds of electronics"—but he kept walking. He passed a movie theater displaying a big colored poster of a fat woman with stupendous breasts and purple talons for fingernails. He was thinking: It wasn't me. She was the one who'd asked.

  "What is it you want, sir? Come inside," a man in shirtsleeves demanded at the doorway of a curio shop.

  Crossing a busy rotary of honking traffic, he began to notice the heat. He was perspiring now, but he would not let it slow him: he needed to go on walking. The sights, the shops, the churches made it easier for him—and wasn't this a Christian church in the English style? He thought of going inside, but he saw a padlocked hasp on the front door.

  Farther on he saw an emptier street, less traffic, just a few pedestrians, and heading there he found himself among lanes leading to another part of the harbor. He saw warehouses, a market with empty stone tables, the stalls vacated at this time of day.

  Its emptiness looked attractive in this overcrowded city. He turned into the lane. He could see to the end, another warehouse, and water. Sensing movement, he looked down and saw a rat. He kicked at it, but the rat was unperturbed, big as a cat, nibbling at the husk of a coconut.

  While he had been walking the sun had gone down. He walked under the afterglow in the sky, streaked with pink and gold. At the far end of the covered market was the warehouse, shuttered and dark, and stacked against it were great coils of rope and a partly rubbed-away sign, on which he could read the words Jute Mills.

  He was near enough to the water to see the glimmer of the sea. He found a place to sit and drew a breath, thinking how odd it was in such a populous city to be where there were no people.

  Then he heard another rat. He stamped his foot and turned to frighten it.

  "Sir."

  Indru—her dress and shoes so white in these shadows.

  "How did you find me?"

  "I follow, sir."

  She bowed to him. She looked older with the shadows on her face, her white cotton dress glowing. Her stillness alarmed him, and her accent seemed stronger in the twilight.

  "May I be seated, sir?"

  He was sitting on a coil of rope on a giant spool the size and shape of a tractor tire. Still, he was impressed by her formality.

  "Go ahead."

  "Thank you, sir."

  Was it her formality, the mode of her politeness, that made him feel, if not powerful, then dominant—in charge in this lonely place?

  "Indru," he said.

  "You did not forget my name."

  "What do you want?"

  "I am so hungry, sir."

  It was a terrifying statement. He put his hand into hers. Her hand lay open on her lap, small, though her palm was hard, almost coarse, and her skin like that of a scaly little animal. She said she worked in a salon, but perhaps she also did some sort of hard work? Her stiff stubby fingers closed on his hand—she was trying to show him some affection.

  "You're a nice girl, Indru."

  "Thank you, sir."

  With his free hand he touched her thigh through her loose dress, hiking it up slightly. He felt the skin just above her knee and slipped his fingers around her thigh, where she was warm, as though holding a fresh piece of meat, even sensing that this smoothness would taste good.

  She did not resist, yet she made a sound in her throat, swallowing, as if bracing herself, the sort of sucking breath a person draws before taking a risk.

  Hearing a rustling sound, he saw in the dim light a rat nibbling a broken blossom that was easily visible because of its white petals. But everywhere else it was dark in the alley. The only available light was the patch of sky above the lane and the twilit harbor framed by the end of the warehouse.

  "May I kiss you?"

  "Why not, sir?"

  Her willingness to kiss seemed like the proof she wasn't a whore.

  He kissed her lips, loving their softness, and he marveled at the risk he was taking. But she had followed him here, the way a homeless animal seeks comfort. He remembered, I am so hungry, sir, and he dug in his pocket for the small soft pouch and the ring that he often fingered, hating the memory of it.

  He had to do it now, before anything happened. It was a gift, not a fee. He put it into her hand. She took it without looking, slipped it into her pocket.

  "Do you like me?"

  She seemed to hesitate. Was it his searching hand that disturbed her? After a reflex of resistance, she allowed it.

  "Yes, sir."

  3

  Now, looking down at the Gateway of India from the boardroom at the top of Jeejeebhoy Towers, he saw the warehouses, the docks, the rope works, Apollo Bunder, the Taj Hotel, even the corner window of his suite, the steamy streets he had hurried through afterward, hot with exhausted desire. He could see beyond the promenade where the old woman had led him, and a rooftop that might have been part of her house. Laid out before him was the map of his past three days—transforming days. He did not know what to make of it except that he was not afraid of India anymore. He was anxious about what he had discovered in himself, but he did not w
ant to look any deeper. He didn't want to feel ashamed for something that he regarded as a kind of victory.

  Someone—Miss Bhatia?—was passing him a dish of curried potato. He scooped some onto his plate. Three days ago he would have refused it. He passed the dish to Shah.

  "I am not taking potato," Shah said.

  "Allergic?"

  "They are having germs," Shah said. "Also fungus. And little growths."

  "Afraid of getting sick?"

  "Oh, no. As I mentioned to you, I am Jain. We do not kill."

  "You mean"—and Dwight began to smile—"you're trying to avoid killing the germs?"

  "That is correct."

  "And the fungus in the potatoes?"

  "I will take some of nuts and pulses," Shah said. And turning to Mr. Desai, "Shall we now discuss payment schedule?"

  That was the second, the transformative trip. He left that night, or rather at two the next morning, a changed man. Or was he changed? Perhaps these impulses had always slumbered in him and now India had wakened them, allowing him to act.

  "I can't wait to come back," he told Shah, who was pleased.

  How shocked Shah would have been if he had explained why, and described his encounters—the dancer Sumitra, the waif Indru. He could not stop thinking about them, solitary Indru most of all. The whole of India looked different to him now, brighter, livelier. But more, he was himself changed. I am a different man here, he thought, as the plane roared down the runway and lifted above the billion lights of Mumbai. I want to go back and be that man again.

  His fears were gone, he was a new man, he was happier than he could remember. The image of the Gateway of India came to him, and he thought, I have passed through it.

  Back in Boston, at his desk, the partners stopped in, to convey their routine greetings, and the repeated note was that they admired him for having gone to India, regarded him as a real traveler and risk taker, gave him credit for enduring the discomfort, talked only of illness and misery, and said he was a kind of hero. All the senior partners congratulated him on the deals he'd done—such simple things, if only they knew. He could have said that Indians were hungry and they helped him because they were helping themselves.