Delhi (16 page)

It was different with the American Missy Baba, Georgine.

My contact with the US Embassy was a man named Carlyle. I do not know what he did in the embassy except that he looked after what he called ‘visiting firemen’. He had tried out other guides. Once he was assured that ‘I did no hanky panky’ with visitors, he put a lot of custom my way. Americans were my best customers. Despite their brash manners they were more friendly and generous than other foreigners. I was particularly careful with Carlyle’s ‘visiting firemen’. I was respectful, polite and kept my distance. I opened car doors for them, did not angle for tips or look eagerly at their tape recorders, cameras and ball-point pens. (I knew they would leave some memento for me). I did not take them to emporia to earn commissions but helped them with their shopping at the best and cheapest stores. I never made passes at Carlyle’s introductions and only obliged those who insisted on my obliging them.

My Oxbridge accent impressed Americans more than it did the other nationalities; to them I was a gentleman guide, a well-to-do fellow fallen on evil days, which was true.

Carlyle introduced me to Georgine. Georgine was Mrs Carlyle’s niece and had come to Delhi to spend her Christmas vacations. ‘This is Georgine,’ Carlyle said without mentioning her second name. ‘And this is your guide,’ without mentioning mine. I bowed. She said ‘Hi.’

As I said before, she was very young, gawky, freckled, pimpled, snub-nosed—but also large-bosomed and even larger-assed. She wore a tight-fitting sweater with ‘Arizona’ printed across her boobs and bum-tight jeans frayed at their ends. I asked her what interested her more, people or monuments. She shrugged her shoulders, stuck out her tongue and replied in a voice full of complaint: ‘How should I know? A bit of both, I guess.’ She proceeded to take snapshots of the Carlyles, the house, the car—then handed me her mini-camera so she could be in the pictures as well. She spoke very fast and dropped the g’s at the end of most words: goin’, comin’, gettin’, seein’. She was very animated and spoke with her grey eyes and hands; she interspersed her speech with noises like
unh, shucks, crikey
— and was constantly sticking out her red tongue.

‘What are we waitin’ for?’ she demanded turning to me the first day after she had finished the photo session.

I opened the rear door of the car for her. She ignored me and bounced into the front seat beside the chauffeur. I took my place in the rear seat. ‘Miss....’

‘The name is Georgine.’

‘Miss Georgine, have you...’

‘Not Miss Georgine; just plain and simple Georgine, if you don’t mind.’

‘I was going to ask you, if you had read any Indian history. We are going to see...’

‘That’s a stoopid question to ask an American high school girl. Why in the name of Christ should I have read Indian history?’ I decided to keep cool. We passed through Delhi Gate into Faiz Bazaar. ‘What are all these jillions doin’?’ she demanded.

‘They are not jillions, they are vegetable-sellers. They...’

She turned round as if to make sure I were human. ‘You don’t know a jillion? It is the highest number—more than millions of millions. Even the dumbest American kid knows that.’

‘Oh, I see,’ I replied tamely. ‘The population of Delhi has more than trebled in these last twenty years. It is over four million now.’

‘I don’t want to know that!’ she snapped.

We went out of Faiz Bazaar—on our left the Royal Mosque, Jamia Masjid, on our right massive red walls of the Fort. She ordered the chauffeur to stop and took more snapshots. We drove up to the entrance of the Red Fort. While I queued up to buy a ticket for her, she took photographs: Chandni Chowk, the
tongas
, hawkers, beggars, everything. She stopped outside the entrance to take pictures of the guards, looked up at the towering walls and exclaimed ‘Yee!’

No sooner had we entered the arcade with its rows of shops aglitter with brass, gold-and-silver thread embroidery, miniature Taj Mahals and other bric-à-brac, than she stretched her arms wide and exclaimed, ‘I want everythin’ in this crummy bazaar. How much?’ She went from shop to shop picking up things and putting them down with a grunt. But she was canny. She parried every attempt to sell her anything. A marble-seller would say, ‘Yes memsahib, some
marbil-varbil?’
and she would shake her head and reply firmly ‘No thanks.’

We came to the Naqqar Khana gate. I cleared my throat. She pulled out her
Murray’s Guide
and said: ‘Don’t tell me. This is where drums were beaten, right? And that red buildin’ in front is the Dear one somethin’-or-the-other where the kingee received common folk, right?’

‘Right on the mark. It is the Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of General Audience. You don’t need a guide, you know everything.’

‘No. I don’t,’ she snapped. Armed with
Murray’s Guide
she instructed me about Emperor Shah Jahan, when he had lived, when he had built the palaces, pointed out the figure of Orpheus behind the throne, the Rang Mahal, the ‘Dreamin’ Chamber’, the octagonal Jasmine tower and the ‘Dearonee...’

‘Diwan-i-Khas.’

‘Where kingee sat on the peacock throne to receive noblemen. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘Goodee! That pearly mosque built by the kingee’s son who locked up Dad and became King Orangeade.’

‘Aurangzeb.’

‘Aren’t I clever?’

‘Very! You could make a handsome living as a professional guide.’

‘I could at that! I am thirsty. Can I get a carton of milk or a Coke some place?’

‘Coke, yes. Milk, no.’

We returned to the arcade. She drank two bottles of Coke, pressed her belly and belched. ‘Sorree! I feel good.’

It usually took me over an hour-and-a-half to take visitors round the Red Fort. Georgine did it in twenty minutes. I picked up a marble Taj Mahal encased in glass and nodded to the shopkeeper. He wagged his head to indicate I could have it for free. ‘Miss... I mean Georgine, this is for you. With my compliments.’

‘Me? What for?’ she demanded blushing. She grabbed it from my hands and clasped it to her big bosom. ‘It’s lovely. Thank you.’ She gave me a peck on my nose, ‘And that’s for you bein’ so nice to a horrid girl.’

This time she took the rear seat beside me. When I asked the chauffeur to take us to the Royal Mosque, she protested: ‘Nope. One mornin’ one buildin’. Okay?’

‘That would take us a whole month to do Delhi.’

‘Goodie! You can spend every mornin’ with me. Won’t you like that?’

We drove through Chandni Chowk, Khari Bawli and Sadar Bazaar. Georgine kept taking snapshots and making unintelligible sounds. She suddenly turned round, stared at me and giggled, ‘Gawd! You are a funny lookin’ man!’ she exclaimed. ‘If somebody had told me last week that I’d be ridin’ around with a darkie with a bandage round his head and a beard round his chin, I would have died.’ I made no comment. She sensed my resentment. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she added, ‘I am always sayin’ such dumb, stoopid things. Anyway what have you got under that bandage?’ I made no reply. She grunted
unh
and said no more till we were back in Carlyle’s home. As she got out of the car she asked, ‘Can I pull your beard?’ Before I could raise my hand to protect myself she grabbed it in her hand and gave it a violent tug. She threw three ten rupee notes on the seat, jumped out with the miniature Taj in her arms, and with a jerk of her big bottom ran to the door. ‘Bye! See you tomorrow.’

The bloody bitch!
I muttered to myself. What she needs is to be put across the knee, her jeans ripped off and a few hard smacks on her large, melon-sized bottom. Followed by buggery.

At the Coffee House I found myself telling my cronies about Georgine. I didn’t like my Sikh journalist friend referring to her ‘as another quail I had trapped.’ Nor the politician warning me against carnal knowledge of a girl of sixteen. When I came out of the Coffee House, it was late in the afternoon. The
jamun
trees were alive with the screeching of parakeets. I wanted to fill my chest and yell her name so loudly that it would be heard all over Connaught Circus,
‘Georgeeen
,’ and the traffic would come to a halt, ‘
Georgeen’
and the parakeets would stop screaming. And the only sound to be heard would be ‘
Georgine, Georgine, Georgine
,’ echoing round and round the Circus.

That evening I told Bhagmati about Georgine. As usual she did not like my being so enthusiastic about anyone except her. I tried to laugh it off by reminding her that Georgine was forty years younger than me. That did not reassure her. And when I took her with greater gusto than usual, she asked, ‘What is the matter with you today?’ Meaning
you are not taking me but
that fat-bottomed sixteen-year-old white girl
. She was right.

I was less exuberant in the morning. However, I spent twenty minutes in my cold, damp bathroom dyeing my beard. By the time I turned up at Carlyle’s house I was apprehensive of the kind of reception I would get.

Georgine was outside soaking in the sun. She looked more grown up. ‘How do you like my new hair-do?’ she asked turning her head sideways. The hair was bunched on top of her head and tied in a chignon. It made her neck look longer and bared her small pink ears.

‘Very nice! Makes you look like a lady.’

‘I am that.
Shucks!
’

In the car she asked me if I slept with my turban on my head.

I replied: ‘If you were a little older, I would have said “Come and find out for yourself!”’

Her face flushed. ‘You are an ole lech! You makin’ a pass at me or somethin?’

It was my turn to be embarrassed. ‘I said if you were older and I meant a lot older. I must be older than your father.’

‘ I don’t buy that kind of crap!’

I laid on some flattery. White people are not used to flattery and succumb very easily. She gave me an opening by taking my hand and apologizing: ‘Don’t be mad with me. I don’t mean to be nasty.’

‘You are not nasty,’ I replied taking a grip on her hand, ‘you are the nicest Missy Baba I’ve met.’

‘Messy what?’ she asked, raising her voice.

‘Not messy, Missy. No flattery, it is not often I have anyone as pretty to take around.’

‘
Unh
’ she growled. ‘I am not pretty or good lookin’ or anythin’ like that.’

But it was clear my compliment had hit the mark. Her face had gone pink with happiness and after a pause she said ‘You’re a nice ole man. Can I call you pop? I don’t know your name anyhow.’

Girls are more easy to seduce when they are sixteen than when they are a year or two older. At sixteen they are unsure of themselves and grateful for any reassurance you can give them about their looks or brains—either will do. Georgine, despite her brashness, proved very vulnerable. I took her to the Coffee House, as I said, ‘to show her off to my friends.’ She blushed again and repeated, ‘You are an ole lech you know? But I like you.’

At the Coffee House we sat in the section marked ‘Families Only.’ I ordered a Coke for her and went to greet my friends. They were not very complimentary about Georgine. Said my Sikh journalist friend: ‘From the way you described her, I thought you had picked up a Marilyn Monroe. Nice fat boobs and bum though!’

‘She’s no Noor Jahan,’ opined the political expert. ‘Like any American schoolgirl. Must have a nice pussy. But you must be madder than I thought; you try any tricks with that one, you will be in for seven years rigorous imprisonment.’

Ugly, vulgar words. I rejoined Georgine. ‘What did they have to say about your girl-friend?’ she asked.

‘Girl-friend? Oh you mean you?’ I replied pretending to have been taken by surprise. ‘They said you were very beautiful.’

‘Liar! I bet you a hundred dollars, they said, “What are you doin’ with a lil girl like that? Foolin’ around with anyone under seventeen can land you in a jail.” How ‘bout that for a guess?’

‘Wrong, wrong, wrong,’ I protested vehemently. I could see she was happy.

This time she put my fee in an envelope and gave it to me with ‘Thanks a whole lot.’

That evening I was by turns exhilarated and conscience-stricken. In my confusion I rang her up without having anything to say to her. Her uncle picked up the phone. ‘You must not let Georgine make a nuisance of herself,’ he said, ‘and let me have your bill for the time she’s been with you.’ He put down the receiver without asking me why I had rung. But I was excited to know that Georgine had paid me without telling her uncle.

I decided to use the information at an appropriate moment. Meanwhile I became bolder in my compliments. Since she changed her hair-style every day I got many opportunities to say something that would please her. One day she dressed herself in a bright red sari. It did not suit her, nor did she know how a woman in a sari should walk—like most Caucasians she had a masculine stride. I said ‘How charming’—and she replied: ‘Oh thank you, I thought you’d sort of like to see me in your native costume.’ I explained that the sari was not native to the Punjab and that a
salwar-kameez
would look even nicer on her. ‘O great!’ she exclaimed. ‘I must have these thingees at once.’ I took her to a tailor and while she was choosing the material I told him in Punjabi to send the finished products with the bill to me. Georgine could not make up her mind. What she liked best she said was too expensive for her. So she settled for the second best. I spoke to the tailor (again in Punjabi) to use the material of her first choice.

‘You think it will look nice on me?’ she asked me when we were in the car.

‘I am sure it will. We have a word in our language
jamazebi
which means the ability to fit into any clothes. I think you will look nice in anything you wear.’ (Far from being
jamazeb
, because of her large bosom and broad hips she had difficulty in fitting into readymade clothes). ‘You are nuts,’ she said dismissing the compliment. ‘I know none of the nice things you say are true, but I like you sayin’ them. So don’t stop, O–Kay?’

Getting her into my apartment was easy. Two days after she had been measured, I offered to drive her around in my own car. When I went to pick her up, I said, as casually as I could, ‘Your things have been delivered to my apartment. Would you like to pick them up before we go sightseeing?’