Blue Shifting (20 page)

He ate slowly, concentrating on the act of eating, savouring every mouthful. If what was happening to him continued indefinitely, and there was no reason to suppose that it would not, then he would be deprived of what could be called a 'normal' life; he would live from day to day, from event to event, with nothing to sustain him in the long term but the assurance of constant change and the small, individual pleasures to be gleaned from such an existence. He had, after all, lived alone for years in the mountains with no ill-effects. He would survive.

After the meal he sat up on the bed, the second bottle of beer in his lap. He was tired, and he decided to sleep until the evening. He wanted to be awake this time when five a.m. came around.

As he drifted off, he wondered if the Park authorities had noticed his absence yet. He'd been gone three days and his failure to report each evening should have been noted by now. They would no doubt ring him, instigate a visit when he didn't respond. He imagined the Bell-Huey landing on the lonely mountain-side; what would the forestry commissioner make of the deserted timber lodge, its only door locked from the inside, its windows secured likewise?

Janner was awoken by a knocking at his bedroom door; by its urgency he guessed he'd slept through an initial summons. The room was in darkness. He sat up, fumbled for the bedside lamp and squinted at the clock. It was seven. He wondered what they wanted.

The knocking ceased. "Mr Janner?"

He snatched open the door. The receptionist faced him, hand raised to knock again. She stood aside, and in the dazzling brightness of the hall Janner saw what he took at first to be two soldiers. Behind them stood curious guests, the bell-boy and sundry other on-lookers.

A small man in a khaki uniform and beret stood before him. "Sergeant Banerjee, Varanasi police," the man said. "There seems to be some irregularity. If I might inspect your passport, sir."

I'll say there's an irregularity, Janner thought.

He opened the door to admit the sergeant and his deputy, who closed it on the phalanx of gawping spectators. He pulled his passport from his pocket and handed it to the sergeant.

"I'm sure we can clear up this little matter in no time," the sergeant said. His English was perfect, though with a lilting intonation which sounded almost Welsh.

Janner almost said: "I wouldn't be too sure about that," but stopped himself. He was surprised he was so calm; he had envisioned a similar scenario for a day or two, always with apprehension.

The sergeant was flipping through the passport.

Janner said: "Is it established practice for hotel receptionists to inform the police whenever there seems to be a problem-?"

The officer ceased his rifling, marking his place in the passport with his thumb. "Of course, sir. India is a powerful country – we have many enemies. We need to be constantly vigilant."

Janner sighed. "I assure you that I am no one's enemy."

"Of course not, sir," the sergeant smiled. "In every respect your passport seems to be in order. It is clearly yours; it is valid... But in two details it is lacking. I wonder if you might enlighten me, Mr Janner? You seem to have no visa or entry stamp."

Janner just stared at the sergeant, wondering what kind of response might be appropriate. How about ignorance?

"But... surely they're in there somewhere?"

"I assure you that they are not."

Janner shook his head in feigned incredulity. "I don't understand-"

"How long have you been in India, Mr Janner?"

"Ah... since this morning."

"And how did you arrive?"

Janner hesitated. "I flew," he said.

"You have a return ticket?"

"No... It was one way."

"And you can offer no explanation for the fact that you are without a visa or entry stamp?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. None at all."

The sergeant was becoming impatient.

"In that case I shall have to ask you to come with me."

At this, his deputy stiffened. His right hand strayed to the butt of his holstered pistol.

Janner held up a hand. "Okay. That's fine." He wondered if he would be detained until five the following morning. "Can I take my rucksack?"

"That won't be necessary."

Janner could think of no good reason to insist. In the pocket of his shirt was all his money, which was his main concern. He saw his down jacket hanging on the back of the door. On the way out, he casually unpegged it and slung it over his shoulder. There was reason to believe that he'd be experiencing freezing temperatures in the days to come.

~

After the cool of the hotel, the tropical night air encapsulated the trio with properties more fluid than gaseous. By the time he reached the waiting police car, Janner's shirt was wringing wet with sweat. He sat in the rear seat between the sergeant and his deputy while the driver steered at speed through crowded streets. Janner closed his eyes, grateful for the breeze blowing in through the open front window.

The police station was an ugly concrete building in a compound behind a high wall. Janner was marched down a long corridor, aswarm with civilians and police alike. They halted outside a lacquered wooden door bearing the title, in Hindi and in English: Divisional Superintendent.

The sergeant knocked and entered.

A tall and portly Sikh, his turban the same khaki shade as his uniform, stood beside his desk. He exchanged rapid-fire Hindi with the sergeant, while Janner noted the large map of India on the wall behind the desk. A ubiquitous fan turned lethargically overhead.

The superintendent extended a large hand with a friendliness Janner thought at odds with his rank. "Ah, Mr Janner. There seems to be a slight problem here." He spoke in his own language to the sergeant, who handed over the offending passport and hurried from the room.

The superintendent introduced himself as Singh, and indicated a chair before the desk. Singh seated himself and thumbed through the passport, the document reduced to the size of a postage stamp in his massive hands. He turned his attention to a sheet of notes on the desk.

After a period of amazement at the calm he had shown during his arrest – a less experienced Janner would have passed out at the thought of such an occurrence – he now realised that he was confident of his invulnerability. Whatever charges they threw at him, it mattered little. They could jail him and it would cause Janner no concern at all.

Singh looked up. Without preamble he said, "On which airline did you fly into Delhi, Mr Janner?"

"Ah... Air India," Janner temporized.

"Flight number?"

"I'm sorry."

"Can you recall what time you landed in our country?"

Truthfully, Janner said, "Around five o'clock."

Singh took all this down with an old fashioned fountain pen, dipping it periodically into a stubby bottle of ink.

"Did you apply for a visa in Wellington, Mr Janner?"

As much as he disliked doing so, Janner thought it best to play the idiot. "I didn't realise I had to."

Again Singh flicked through the passport, this time with visible irritation, as if finding it increasingly impossible to believe that a foreign national could enter his country without official verification of the fact.

"Mr Janner, how did you evade our customs check?"

Janner shrugged helplessly. "I had no idea I did so."

"I have contacted your embassy in Delhi," Singh said. "They are sending someone over. He will be arriving here tomorrow morning."

"In that case I can return to my hotel?"

"That will not be possible. Absolutely no way, Mr Janner. I am afraid you will be spending a night under lock and key." Tacked directly to the end of this sentence was a bellowed command in Hindi.

The sergeant entered the room and snapped off a salute. Singh grunted instructions, then turned to the phone and busied himself with the process of dialling without so much as a glance in Janner's direction.

He was taken from the office, along the corridor and down a flight of stairs. His jailer – a scowling, Oriental dwarf – gestured him to enter his cell, a narrow space between two other cells, with a whitewashed wall at the back and bars in front. A charpoy covered with a grey blanket occupied two thirds of the floor, and a bucket stood beside it. Janner accepted his incarceration with impeccable grace.

He stretched out on the charpoy and laced his fingers under his head. A clock on the corridor opposite wall indicated that it was almost midnight. Beneath it, a calendar depicted a scene from the Bhagadav Gita: a blue man – Vishnu, wasn't it? – enthroned in a garden paradise. Janner smiled.

He closed his eyes, but every time he felt himself drifting off he forced them open and stared at the ceiling. He wanted to be awake – unlike last night – come five o'clock. He was abetted in this by the hourly rounds of his jailer. The small, fat Oriental in flip-flops, blue shorts and vest, rattled the bars on the hour with a large dessert spoon, peering into cells to ensure the continued presence of each captive. Repeatedly Janner started from his sleep to see the man's monkey-like face grimacing in at him.

On the very last occasion, Janner sat up and squinted at the clock on the wall. To his shock it read five minutes past five.

He wondered if what he had initially considered a curse – but which this time he hoped would be his salvation – had forsaken him.

The jailer waddled past the cell, on his way out.

"Excuse me!"

The man stopped, peered at him.

Janner pointed to the clock. "The time – is it right? Surely..."

The man's face split into a huge grin. "A-cha! You noticed! Yes, it is right – other times not!"

"I'm sorry...?"

His jailer condescended to explain. "I – Nepalese. Nepali time fifteen minutes before Indian time. I – in command down here. Down here – Nepalese time!"

Janner smiled in relief. "So the clock's fifteen minutes fast?"

The jailer frowned, his expression as belligerent as it was formerly beatific. "No, not fast! Time down here right. Up there," he pointed upwards, indicating the rest of India, "up there, time slow!"

"Ah... I understand. Thank you."

The man saluted and continued on his way.

Janner sat on his bed and watched the minute hand move slowly towards twenty past. Almost to the second, he felt the curious bubbling sensation which coursed through his veins like champagne. He was filled with an incredible feeling of euphoria. The faint blue glow, which he had witnessed on two earlier occasions, emanated from every pore of his body, so that within seconds he was encapsulated in a lambent nimbus of lapis lazuli light. It spread outwards, filling his cell, and the feeling of all-consuming peace increased.

Through the haze of the blue light, Janner saw the jailer run into the corridor and stop, transfixed. The Nepali fell to his knees, hands pressed together above his head in supplication. His expression, within the diamond of his raised arms, was one of stupefaction.

The blue light thickened, blotted out Janner's surroundings, and he existed in a displaced void like limbo.

Then the blue light vanished.

Christ, he cried to himself, where the hell now?

2

Athens – it had to be.

Janner found himself on a rocky knoll, at such an elevation that the city was spread out like an architect's scale model far beneath him. He was in the Acropolis, with the Parthenon below to his right and assorted ruins and statuary occupying the slopes and levels all around, interspersed with sandy paths and olive trees. Unlike in India, here the heat was clean and sharp, almost refreshing. He shucked off his jacket and turned his face to the morning sun. Incredible though his translocation was, he no longer experienced the surge of panic on arrival which had marked his first few transitions.

Until four days ago, his life had been markedly unremarkable. Each day had been like the one before, sixteen hours of rigorous routine with little or no deviation. His job of forest ranger and fire-watching had required an unvarying itinerary, and over the years he had found that his temperament was suited to such a regime. He had watched for fires for hours on end, taken meteorological readings, reported the occasional sighting of a rare bird in the area. When wearing his forest ranger cap, he had erected fences, repaired walls and pathways. It had be a largely uneventful existence.

Then, four mornings ago, precisely seven years to the day since taking up the post of forest ranger in '73, it had happened. He'd risen as usual at four forty-five, fixed himself a breakfast of porridge and coffee, and sat down to eat in his ancient leather armchair before the massive plate glass window. Fortunately, as it turned out, the morning had been cold, and while he had waited for the wood-burning stove to heat the lodge, he zipped himself into the down jacket he'd bought himself as a Christmas present the previous year. Sewn into the lining of the jacket for safe-keeping – he had an eccentric's mistrust of all institutions, banks included – was his life savings, some nine hundred New Zealand dollars, and his passport.

He'd just finished his coffee when the tingling began, followed by the unaccountable sensation of well-being. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced before, and so at odds with his usual depression that it caused him to sit up and laugh out loud at his reflection in the window. Then his body began to leak a faint blue light. He recalled that he'd screamed – was he about to burst into flame, a victim of spontaneous human combustion? The light had intensified – he leapt from his chair, took a step forward, and then the light had vanished and he'd found himself staggering down a city street in the tropics.

The incident seemed so distant now, his heart-surging fear a thing of the past, that he had difficulty recalling his thoughts and feelings at the time. Certainly his stupefied incomprehension, as he stumbled down the street, had brought him to the attention of the few people about. He recalled a police officer quizzing him in some fast, glottal tongue, other people backing away from him in alarm. He'd wandered through the Indonesian city that day in a daze, had eaten nothing and spoken to no-one. Come night-fall, he found a hostel and booked a room for the night, but had been unable to sleep. At five in the morning he'd experienced a familiar sensation, and when the blue light enveloped him again he gave thanks that at last he was returning home.